Garrulous and Gritless
by ShiningMoon
Summary: Due to a small change in strategy on Goku and Piccolo's part, Raditz survives the fight against them - barely. How will his presence affect events to come?  A divergence from the DBZ storyline, narrated by various characters. Bulma/Raditz
1. I, 1: Gohan

NOTE: This story will be narrated by several different characters. It should be pretty clear who each one is after reading a sentence or two, but I'm also putting the name of the narrator as the chapter title.

I'm not anywhere near done plotting this story yet, but I wanted to get started writing it - I'm too excited! This is sure to be a crazy trip, guys. Please join me, and if you can, leave me a comment every now and again. You won't believe how much they inspire me to get working! Critique, obviously, is also very much appreciated.

I didn't know what to title it, but I decided "Garrulous and Gritless" seems appropriate enough for Raditz (around whom this fic shall be centered, as far as I can see). He's all talk. Heh.

Without further ado, Gohan starts things off for us.

...

**Part I**

...

I wake up and I'm a little shaky. My clothes smell like the grass and that's probably not good, because Mommy usually doesn't it like it when my clothes smell like the grass, because usually that means they look like the grass, too.

But I'm not in a forest like usual and pretty soon I remember that I was flying on a cloud with Daddy to an island, a little island with his friends. I remember something wasn't right, something was scary—somebody took me away.

Some guy who said he was my daddy's brother.

But I look around and I don't see him. How did I get here? My body hurts a little bit, like I just flew through a wall. Pretty soon, though, I realize that he's behind me, that I was facing the wrong way. Why does my head hurt so much?

He's yelling but it's not at me. He's yelling at my daddy with that weird name. He's laughing but he sounds a little nervous; I know 'cause that's how Daddy sounds when he tries to lie to Mommy about why he's late for dinner, only this guy is angrier.

The scary green man whispers something to Daddy, but I can't hear it all the way from here, pretty far away. It's like they forgot about me here. I wish I didn't forget how I got here. I think I'm a little bruised up and there's some skid marks nearby. And some little scraps of metal. When I look across the way to see where the scraps of metal came from, there's a big crater.

Oh.

The round cage he put me in. The mean guy took me, and put me in the round thing. I—I don't remember—somehow I got out. Sometimes that stuff happens. I just don't remember how I did things.

Now the scary green guy is charging at the guy with a tail like mine. My daddy stands real still, his hands at one side like he's trying to hold up a really heavy ball, or something.

Then there's a ball inside his hands. Glowing. He's really quiet. I think he knew it was going to happen. My daddy can do some pretty strange things, but usually he doesn't. Usually Mommy's not that happy when he does. I think she thinks I can do strange things too, strange like how I have a tail and nobody else I've ever seen does, until this guy. His hair's all over, more than mine and more than Daddy's, and his words are all over too 'cause he just keeps talking.

Then something changes.

The scary green guy has something in his hands and the all-over hair guy sounds different. Different like how my daddy sounds when he thinks he's not gonna get dinner. Except this whole thing is a lot scarier than no dinner, and now my head hurts even more. I squint real hard and try to figure out why the hair guy sounds different, or what the green guy has in his hands, or why the hair guy isn't running away from the green guy, who I'm pretty sure is on our side.

But then I tilt my head a little and notice that the green guy has the other guy's tail, right there in his hands. My own tail twitches a little bit, because I bet that really hurts. It must be why he sounds like that, maybe the green guy is going to hurt his tail.

"Please!" he shouts, looking across the way at my daddy. "Tell him to stop! I promise, I won't harm your son!"

My daddy's eyes flicker a little bit. "Or anybody else?" he asks.

"I'll leave peacefully!" his voice is really weird now, kind of like he's choking on something. "I swear!"

"Piccolo," my daddy says, and I guess that's the green guy's name.

"Don't think for a second I'm letting him go, Son," I can barely hear him because he's sort of growling it. I see his fingers move a little like his fists are getting tighter around the other guy's tail. I don't think Mommy knew any of this was gonna happen, or else she wouldn't have let me go. She says Daddy is always getting into trouble and I guess it must be true. She says he has to be a role model for me. But I don't even know what he does, and how does he do that glowing ball in his hands? It's getting bigger, now. "The second I let go," the green guy starts talking again, "he's just going to try to kill us again."

"I...I guess," Daddy says. The ball gets even bigger.

"Are you about ready?" the green guy asks.

The hair guy yells, "I swear!"

Daddy frowns a little bit and looks my way, and I must look pretty bad because his eyes get kind of big at me. I whimper a little. Mommy isn't gonna be too happy. Then he looks right back at the hair guy and seems angrier. "_Ka_," he says, and I guess I've never heard his voice like this, "_me_..._ha...me..._" the ball gets bigger and bigger, and it looks even bluer than the sky and even brighter than the sun, and then he yells really loud, "_HA!_" and the ball shoots out of his hands, but the ball's tail sort of stays there and Daddy stays in that pose. The hair guy tries to move but the Piccolo guy still has his tail, squeezes it really tight and the other guy's eyes close and a weird sound comes out of his mouth. The big blue thing from my daddy's hands hits him right in the chest, and then Piccolo puts his hand on the guy's back to push him further into the beam. After a little bit, my daddy's arms fall to his sides. The hair guy crumples over, muttering things.

"We should kill him now," Piccolo says.

"No," my daddy kind of coughs; I think the blue ball thing wore him out. "Don't."

Piccolo growls at him and starts walking my way—looking straight at me. "Fine," (he doesn't sound very fine with it as he says it), "that just means I'll have to kill the both of you once I recover my strength." He seems really mad about it, though. "But you have made a foolish decision, Son," he says. "I hope you come to your senses soon and do away with him." Sounds a little bit like he doesn't think he can do anything about it. By now, he's a lot closer, but I also see an airplane in the sky so I look at that instead of him. I turn my head a little bit so I can also see my daddy out of the corner of my eye. He's crouching over the mean, big-hair guy. I can't tell what the look on his face means. The big-hair guy starts trying to move, but it seems like he can't. My daddy's just about to lift him up when the airplane lands.

"Oh my god," a blue-haired lady says when she gets out, and she's the lady who I saw on the island before. She runs over to me but before she gets here Piccolo grabs me off the ground. She shivers a little bit and takes a half a step back. "Let him go!" she kind of sputters.

"No," is all he says, and I'm getting pretty scared. What is he doing? I hope he's just going to carry me over to Daddy. But he doesn't look like it. His eyes are narrow and he's looking over me like how my mommy's eyes look when she tries to read the instructions on a new coffee maker, a little bit confused but like he already has something going on in his head for how to make something work his way. I sure hope it isn't gonna be throwing me across the room like how Mommy did this once with the new coffee maker.

The blue-haired lady shakes her head a little and then runs over to my daddy, and I see that there are a few other people who were in the plane with her who are already over there.

"I'm glad you're okay," they're all saying, and one of them—the one with no hair and some spots on his forehead—keeps looking over at me like he wants to do something but can't.

Then I hear the blue-haired lady kind of squeal and I thought for a second the hair guy had grabbed hold of her or something. But I see her run into the crater I came out of when I escaped the round cage, and she shouts something about a ship in a really happy voice. Then she runs back up and plucks that weird half-glasses thingy off of the hair guy's face, and he makes some growly noises about it, but he can't really move. Serves him right, I guess, for being so mean.

But I kind of wonder.

If he's my daddy's brother, will he live at our house?

I don't have any time to ask, because the next thing I know, while everybody else is patting my daddy on the shoulder and saying mean things to the big hair guy, I'm in the air.

The scary green Piccolo guy is flying in the air like the hair guy did, and he's carrying me away like the hair guy did. I start screaming so somebody will notice, and he says, "We'll have to fight him again, kid," with an even more serious voice than before. "Him and the two others he mentioned," he adds on. I don't remember two others, but maybe that was while I was asleep on the grass. "Don't think I didn't see what you did to him," he says, and I cry even louder, because I don't know what he's talking about and it's starting to scare me. I'm about to say something to him, something, to make him turn around and take me back, but I feel kind of fuzzy from my head hurting so much, and before I even say anything, everything goes black.


	2. I, 2: Raditz

Shit.

This is not how I saw it happening.

Once upon a time I had a weak little good-for-nothing baby brother who was shipped off to a weak little good-for-nothing planet, whose inhabitants seem to use sticks that shoot small pebbles to defend themselves. Hah.

And I forgot about my weak little baby brother for a good long time. Until recently, when we got our asses handed to us on this planet we were supposed to clear. Hell, but we could make so much money on it. Then I remembered my weak little baby brother. And the name of the mudball he was sent to. Obviously, I was doing him a favor; he must have had it all cleared by now, and was just sitting on his ass waiting, if his pod broke, or something.

But, damn, he really fucked up.

Bumped his head, and now he thinks he's a human—disgusting. Well, so be it—if he didn't accept himself as a Saiyan, I guess I'dve taken his whelp and whipped some sense into _him_. Yeah, I would've done away with Kakarrot. What's the use of a brother if he don't wanna kill?

But his friend got my damn tail, and here I am, on my back in this green leafy stuff, and I can't move. Kakarrot has been trying to say something to me, but even if I gave a shit about what that traitor was talking about, I couldn't hardly hear him over the ringing in my ears. Then all of a sudden his head whips over to the side, and I hear a real distinct yelp of, "Piccolo!" He up and runs off and jumps on some cloud and he's chasing this Piccolo down.

Well, that's one less moron to worry about.

I still can't hardly move—not even sure I can sit up. My arms are stiff so when the wench who'd taken my scouter comes back, I can't even knock her away. "Hey—you," she says, frowning down at me like I'm last week's dinner, "you must have some way to control that pod remotely." Of course I don't answer her, and she sighs like it means something to her and rolls her eyes, says, "Fine, we'll do this the hard way, big boy." For someone I could snap like a twig, she's awfully ballsy. If I could move, I doubt she'd be talking like that.

Then she squats down—damn, I can almost just—bite her arm off, or something—but not quite—and she shoves her hand down my armor, fishing around in it. She pulls out the fucking remote like it was exactly where she thought it'd be, grins, and tucks it away, down her shirt in the same place as I'd had it, and I can see she has some strange armor on underneath her shirt, too. Shit. Maybe she's a fighter. "Thanks," she says, kind of looks me over, closes just one eye like she has a disease except that she's got this disgusting little smile when she does it.

"Of course, it's broken," she seems to start talking to somebody else. "I'm calling Dad to air lift it back to the lab, and I'll try to fix it to work in conjunction with the remote later."

Lab? Oh no. Ain't never been in a lab where things don't get more taken apart than put back together. I open my mouth and some air comes out. "I'm going," it's a lot quieter than I'd like, "with it." She looks my way. "You're not ruining it."

"Oh, sure, so you can just steal it and run off to find your friends when I get it fixed up. Yeah," she rolls her eyes. "I'm a genius, okay? Don't even try to pull something like that over me." She pulls a box out from her shirt and presses some buttons. Soon she's chatting to a voice that comes from it and pacing off to look over at my pod as she speaks.

I can't stop myself from coughing and I manage to roll onto my side, because it hurts a little less. My tail kind of twitches as I cough and I grimace—hurts a lot more than I thought it would.

Then the woman is right back there, behind me, her foot _way _too close to my tail. Over my shoulder I can see her looking back at her little friends. "Kuririn," she says, and he kind of twitches like he's scared that she'll ask something he don't like, "did you have any ideas for what to do with this guy?" He shakes his head and so does the old man behind him.

"M-m-maybe we should...y'know..." the little guy starts, glancing back at the old man, "y'know...uh...kill 'im...since...er..."

The old man shakes his head and mumbles, "I don't think Goku would be too pleased. I think he can take care of this," the guy glances over me like a piece of trash, like he thinks I'm weaker than my stupid brother, like it was anything but a fluke that let him beat me. "It seems that he and Piccolo were more than a match for him, and besides," his eyepieces flash in the light, "at the very least a common enemy will keep Goku and Piccolo from fighting, for now."

"Should we let Son take him, then?" the woman glances off into the sky, in the direction that Kakarrot went. I try to speak, but my voice is acting up again and I can't. "Or should we...take him to a hospital...?"

Finally I can push air through my throat, "I'm going," I say, "with the pod."

"Y-yeah," says the smallest one, and I can smell the sweat coming off him even with my nose nearly buried in these thin green leaves. "Maybe you should take him, Bulma! You have a hospital at your place, right? And, like, um, maybe you could somehow...build something to restrain him!"

"And cut off his tail," the old man says, and that's it—I heave myself up from the ground so that I'm sitting and it scares the shit out of all of 'em.

"If you think you're cutting my tail off," I growl, "you'd best get ready to die." I hold my hand up and they don't know I don't got it in me to fire anything at 'em.

"Well, bye!" they sputter to the woman as they clamber into the plane. She stuffs her arms over her chest and huffs.

"Thanks," she spits, walking in circles around me. "Creep." Then she turns around because something in her pocket makes a noise. She grabs the box out again and starts talking into it, real businesslike, then presses a few more buttons on it and she's squealing like there's something wrong with her lungs—talking into the box with a big ol' grin. When she puts it back in her pocket, she stops smiling. "Now what the hell should I do with you...?" she taps her foot. "Maybe Son will come by to get you later."

"I'm staying with the pod," I tell her. Shit, until Vegeta and Nappa get here, and call in some new equipment, it's my only hope for escape. After all, she took my scouter, too. When I'm better, I'll steal it back from her—yeah. Yeah, I can steal the scouter, call in for a new pod, give Kakarrot what he deserves, take that kid, and get back to Vegeta and Nappa. Won't be hard—once I recover. I grin a little to myself—once I recover I can give Kakarrot the beating of his fucking _life_. And, heh, death.

"I guess we've got a hospital..." she looks up at the sky like it'll answer her. "But you'll probably break the nurses' arms unless I can think up a way to strap you down." She looks over me again, kinda scared, for once. "So, you're like...a space pirate, huh?"

I'm about to tell her I'm not here to make conversation, only, shit, I can't move nearly fast enough to do nothing if I gotta and she's back with her foot near my tail again. Besides, if she really is a fighter, she could kill me right now if she don't like me... "Yeah," I say, "what of it?"

"And you have a couple of friends who are, too? The same race as you and Son?"

"What's it mean to you?"

"Just asking," she rolls her eyes. "Yeesh. I finally get to meet an alien," I open my mouth and she frowns, "—I mean, one who _knows_ he's an alien—and he's a total asshole," she meanders off toward the crater, swaying like she knows I'm watchi—aw, dammit, I am. "Guess I'll just give this pod another once-over," she calls. The bitch is taunting me.

"Don't break it," I try to shout, and it sounds awful. I think I broke a couple ribs and it ain't helping my voice one bit.

"It's already broken, dumbshit," comes back from inside the crater. Then she's climbing back up. "Who did that, anyway? Gohan? Or did Son break him out? It looks like it came from the inside..."

"The kid," I growl.

"Wow," she glances back at it. "I figured he had to have some of Son's," she pauses, "well, whatever it is that Son has." I think she remembers what I did to that turncoat because when she looks back at me her eyes are like fire when she walks up to me. "You're lucky they let you live," she nudges me with her foot. Yeah, she's gotta be a fighter. Why else would she have the guts to so much as touch me? I try to ask her but it comes out mangled. "Something wrong?" she asks. Stupid human.

"Healing tank," I mutter.

"What?" she frowns.

"Get me into a healing tank." My head is killing me and I sure as hell ain't ready to die.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she rolls her eyes—_again_—and looks like she's about to say something when an aircraft lowers down right over the crater. "Oh!" she holds her hand up to block the wind, "Perfect!" The woman runs down the side of the crater to meet someone at the bottom as a platform lowers from the craft. Over the noise of the thing I hear her shouting at someone, and down by my pod I see somebody trying to single-handedly push the pod onto the platform. Hah, like that human thinks he can—oh.

Well. He's still gotta be pretty weak. Anybody can move a pod.

The platform raises the pod back up into the craft. Shit, they're going to take it away and I can't even haul my ass over there before—the woman marches back and glances me up and down. "Dammit," she says, "I don't know." She stomps _way _too close to my tail and crosses her arms, glancing back and forth between me and the hovering craft. Finally, her eyes bore into mine and she ain't flinching one bit. _Definitely_ a fighter. "I swear to god, if you break one single thing in my house _or _my lab _or _the hospital, or wherever the hell I put you, I am calling Son—no, I'm gonna go get _Piccolo_ and have him yank your tail out and kick you to kingdom come!" Her spit nearly flies into my face. Maybe if she's having someone do that for her she ain't no better than I thought at first—or maybe she's like Freeza and just has people do shit for her instead of dirtying her own little hands. Don't think I wanna find out in my present state. "Got it, buddy?"

"Name's Raditz," I grunt.

She seems to take that as a yes. "Can you stand?" Offers her hand out—the nerve! Like I'm gonna take _her_ help. I brace my arms against the ground and...aw, dammit.


	3. I, 3: Bulma

NOTE: You know how sometimes when you're writing, the characters just do whatever they want with no regard to what you had in mind? Yeah. Way to screw with my carefully planned pacing, Bulma and Raditz. Thanks. XD

I think I will have to draw some art of this chapter. Any votes for what scene? Haha.

...

Hah. Cute.

The guy thinks he can walk.

He collapses down onto the ground and I hold my hand out, waiting. Take your time, buddy. Only what may be the greatest opportunity for development of space travel in the history of the _world _awaits me.

He seems a little too stupid to be able to operate such a fine piece of technology, but I guess they could've dumbed it down easily enough. Anyway, maybe stuff like this is common out there—out wherever he came from.

I really don't want to put him in the hospital. For one thing, I don't trust him there.

For another, it makes it a hell of a lot tougher for me to observe him.

I never paid attention to Son's body, well—not when he was a kid, at least. The tail was an enigma, but I figured, well, he's not exactly the only walking talking thing on Earth with a tail. Maybe the fuzzy ears skip a generation. Whatever. I was always a little too afraid to ask, anyway, for fear he'd peel my shirt off in the middle of town just to check for where _my _tail used to be.

So it turns out Son's an alien—I'm not surprised. I'm excited—yeah, because it was my luck to get in just this place, with this alien's technology and his own self right here for me to look over! I can see how he might be Gohan's uncle—I'll bet given time that cute little kid's hair would become a mess like this guy's.

I wiggle my fingers to remind him they're still there. He spits a string of insults at me and I can't help giggling a little bit. He clearly doesn't have any fight left in him, and if I had to guess, I'd say he's hungry, too—well, if he's anything like Son, he's probably always hungry.

Lucky for him I'm taking him back to my lab out of the goodness of my heart. I'm sure Dad will understand; he'll pay to feed him so that I can study him. It was silly for me to think I'd let Son take him in—for one thing, I doubt Chi-Chi would allow it. I wonder what her fortune has dwindled to trying to keep up with Son's appetite and penchant for accidentally destroying things. I wish Son would have come to live with me, sometimes—at least I can afford him. Well—his loss.

This Raditz guy doesn't have Son's boyish good looks, that's for sure. From his weird armor (or lack thereof) I can see his legs are all scraped up and scarred (which, y'know, might not happen if he had the good sense to cover them—I mean, if I were a vicious space pirate I would cover my bases—but—that's me). His eyes have the same mischievous sparkle as Son's—maybe it's a, what was it, Saiyan—thing—but they're about a billion times meaner. Well...not now, though. Hah. Nope.

He looks disgusted as he grabs my hand, and uses it to help pull himself up. I nearly topple over under his weight—is it his muscles, or his hair?—and he glares at me for it. "Some warrior," he scoffs, and he's looking at me.

"It's okay," I tell him, stepping closer so that he can lean against me a little to support himself, and I can't keep the serious face as my lips crack open into a grin, "don't be so hard on yourself."

He swears some more and swings around like he's going to let go of me and punch me. Then he _does _let go of me. And before he can hit me (thank god), he crumples back onto the ground. I can't bite down my laugh and, well, hell, it's not like he can do anything to me for it, besides scream at me and then wheeze a little bit and then start coughing up blood. Oh, shit, this is more serious than I thought it was. I pick him up before he hacks his lungs out—well—I mean "pick up" in the loosest of terms. I sling his arm over my shoulder and after a couple more poisonous glares at me he plants his feet against the ground to help me pick him up.

"I'm staying with my pod," he asserts again, wheezing some more.

"We'll see," is all I say. "If you can behave yourself I might let you visit it sometimes." He doesn't think that's nearly as funny as I do, but he doesn't make the same mistake as last time and just keeps ambling along, somehow managing to lean against me while making himself very far away.

From where I am I can get a closer look at his armor. It's definitely beat up, but it must've been pretty sturdy to hold up in a battle against Son—especially with how awful he and Piccolo looked, and _they're _the ones who _won_.

I'm sure Son will get little Gohan before Piccolo can do anything to him—I'd thought about following, but it's not as if I could do anything. Besides, there's a space pod to dissect...

I should look at the armor, too, and see if I can make something like it. Might come in handy. But he must've taken a pretty hard blow, to get hurt like this, and even his armor can't deflect blunt force, I'm sure. I think some of his ribs might be cracked, among other things.

"Stop talking," I tell him about the fifth time he tries to ask me something about a freezer. "Just shut the hell up, okay?" He opens his mouth again and I smack it. "You can have ice cream when we get back," I tell him, and I have to giggle again, because this guy is nothing like Son. He looks at me like _I_ was the one who fell out of the sky. Except, angrier.

Eventually, we make it to the boarding platform, which is fantastic, because I think I'll die if I have to drag him another step. For one thing, he's bleeding all over my favorite white shirt, and for another, I am _tired_. I pretty much toss him down the first second I can, and he yelps and screams something about a "healing tank."

"Whatever," I say as we get ready to head back home. My father looks over his shoulder from the pilot's seat and I grin a little. "You can look later, Daddy," I tell him, and hope that he can keep his eyes on the sky rather than what awaits him in the spaceship-pod. I'm about to go talk to him, and block his view to the ship while I do so, but then I notice that Raditz has this sneaky look about him, and he keeps stealing glances at the pod.

Well, fine. Two can play at that game.

I sit down in a chair a little farther back and stare at him, this ridiculous-looking man kind of lying there pathetically on the floor. I don't think I can move him another inch, and anyway, I don't want him bleeding all over our nice cushioned seats. So in the hopes that somebody can entertain me while Raditz fumes on the ground and I guard the pod—just in case he's faking it—I look around for Yamcha, who'd helped load the thing up in the first place, but he's not here anymore. "Dad," I call up to the front.

"Yes, dear?" he twists around, probably just as an excuse to look at the pod again.

"Where'd Yamcha go?"

"Something about a, ah, a, what's it...a game of some sort..." he mumbles.

"Baseball," I tell him, sighing. "I'd forgotten. Oh well, I'll thank him later."

Meanwhile, Raditz has passed out. I guess that means he'll complain less when I move him into the lab.

...

But before I move him, while he's still asleep, I tuck the scouter away in my secret little place right by the Dragon Radar, in a box locked away in a separate little area of my lab. And Dad and I put the pod away, too, where we can study it. Then, when Raditz wakes up, well—he won't know where a damn thing is, and I feel a lot better about it that way. He says, I guess, that he has a couple of bigger, badder friends who will come and avenge him, so as far as I'm concerned, it's in our best interest to figure out as much as we can, as fast as we can. Maybe I'll discover something that'll help Son fight off the others.

I still have no idea where to put him, but my father suggests making a little hospital room out of one of the walled-off portions of my lab, and I have to admit that it's a great idea. I don't know how quickly this guy will recover, but I call in a crew to start reinforcing the walls just in case, and building a nice, strong window into the side so that I can look at him from the outside if it's too dangerous to go in.

I get the feeling he is not going to be pleased with this arrangement. Oh well—serves him right for trying to kill Son and kidnap poor little Gohan.

Before he gets better I'll have to work out a better system to keep him down. I figure Son is a pretty safe point of reference, so I just need to think up something that could hold Son down even with a cupcake dangling above his head.

This will be a challenge.

But, I'm pretty excited. We could be mere years from efficient interstellar travel! What's more, I can learn a bit about the Saiyans from this guy. A couple of men haul him into the room on a stretcher, and I step in with them. I'll have to call for medical assistance from time to time, I'm sure—I'm an engineer, not a doctor—but at least with me there he'll be less likely to, I don't know, mangle the help. I tuck away a tranquilizer gun in a nearby locked drawer—just in case. But, I think I should mostly be able to handle him. It doesn't seem like he'll be too keen on the normal medical protocol, anyway—and him lashing out at personnel won't be an issue if they're never there.

...

When he wakes up I nearly stab myself in the eye with a screwdriver.

"Oh gods!" he wails from the closed-off area across the lab from where I am, "Get me to a healing tank!" I can hear it through the walls, and then some, so I can't imagine how loud he was actually yowling. I pace over to the little window in his room and look in on him, tapping on the glass. His mouth slams shut and he stares at me. I hold up my hand to tell him to wait, and round the corner and step in.

"What's going on, here?" I don't know why I think it's so funny, that he was just wailing in agony and now he's not making a peep, but I have to try my damnedest not to out-and-out grin. I have no idea when he's going to recover—when he'll be able to hurt me if he doesn't like what I say or do. Maybe I should ask Yamcha to come in with me from now on—but I doubt he'd volunteer.

Raditz practically hisses at me. "Are you trying to torture me, or what? I'm in fucking _pain _here, you bitch. Just put me in a healing tank." It looks like he's valiantly attempting not to wince as he shifts his weight like he wants to stand up.

"Well, space-man, here on Earth we don't have anything called a 'healing tank,' so sit your ass back down," I tell him. "I can have you bandaged up, if you like, and bring you something to eat, but so help you god you will _not_ move off of that bed."

"Like you care," he continues on his way, his toes brushing onto the ground. I've taken the liberty of removing his armor to study it, and put Raditz in some of Yamcha's spare clothes that he leaves here for when he stays with me. They definitely don't fit—Raditz is taller and his shoulders broader, so the shirt is so tight it practically rips every time he moves, and the pants are just the same—and don't quite reach his ankles.

It's at this point he seems to notice that he's not wearing boots. "What?" he looks at his toes, wiggling them like he's never seen them before, and then he turns to me, narrowing his eyes. "Where are my boots?"

I gesture to the lab outside and he growls and glances at his hands. "My gloves!" He pauses and I brace myself for it. "What the hell is this?"

"Look," I close my eyes, like I'm better than seeing his reaction, and explain in a condescending voice I'm fairly sure will drive him up the wall, "I'm studying your armor, so you'll have to be patient about getting it back. Right now you're wearing some of my boyfriend's clothes, but I'll get you something, er," I'm about to say 'better,' but, damn, he's not actually that bad looking in those clothes despite the ridiculousness of it—better than his armor, at least—"looser, later."

"I'm not letting _you_ clothe me," he snarls, scratching at the pants. "I fucking hate having something on my legs," he whines. Well, he more grumbles it, but I've come to decide that's his whining voice and nothing's proved me wrong so far.

"Suck it up," I say, turning on my heel. "Just lie down and get back to sleep, huh? Would you rather I have left you there naked?" He seems to consider it, opens his mouth, and I crinkle my nose and add before he can answer, "It was a rhetorical question." He lies back down and stuffs his hands over his chest, nostrils flaring as he huffs at me.

Hah. Cute.


	4. I, 4: Gohan

NOTE: Yeah, it's pretty short. But don't even pretend like you can blame me for wanting to hurry along to the next Raditz chapter. XD

...

I wake up again. What happened to me—is it the same as last time, with the—uh—no, wait, I'm somewhere different now. Oh yeah, because the guy my daddy called Piccolo took me away.

I have no idea where I am, but I'm sure I've never been here before. Well, mostly 'cause I've never been much of anywhere besides the woods near my house, and the place where my daddy was just fighting the big hair guy, and that island, and this is definitely not any of those places.

But, I'm pretty sure I hear Daddy's voice nearby. I get up and start walking toward

it—only—

I'm way way way up high.

My daddy is at the bottom of the big tall rock I'm on, talking with Piccolo. If I kneel down on the rock and kind of peek over the edge, I can hear them pretty well.

"But what'll I tell Chi-Chi?" Daddy asks. Piccolo doesn't seem to care at all, and he doesn't even answer. "I mean, she'll probably try to come out here herself...you've gotta promise not to hurt her if she does." He frowns. "Anyway, I think I can train Gohan just fine, so..."

"Son Goku," Piccolo finally speaks up, "you will be far too easy on your child."

Easy on me?

"Well..." he seems to consider it.

"You will come here each day and fight me," Piccolo says.

"Oh?" now Daddy seems excited. Is he really gonna leave me with this scary green guy? But I guess if he's here every day...well...but Mommy's gonna be so mad...what's she going to do when I come back? If I don't even go home I'll look all scruffy and I'll have dirt on me and I won't have my books and I can't study and my hair will get long and messy and my clothes will look bad and Mommy's gonna be so mad—my eyes are all hot and my skin and insides feel funny and then there's water all over my face and I can't think anymore.

"Gohan..." Daddy says from the bottom of the big tall rock.

Piccolo looks at him. "See? You're about to go save him. I need to train him."

"And I can fight you every day?" Daddy kind of bites his lip, but he still looks excited. "And you promise you won't kill me or nothin' like you said you were gonna?"

His teeth show and he makes a funny noise. "I cannot afford to kill you at this time, Son Goku," he says kind of quiet-like. "But rest assured that I will learn from each of our battles and use all of that knowledge against you the moment we overcome the problems posed by these Saiyans."

Now Daddy looks really happy. "Yeah! Yeah, okay!"

"Don't look so overjoyed," Piccolo says. He looks up at me and I just realized it's 'cause a drip of the water from my face fell on top of his head. "You must leave the child alone while I train him. If you talk to him, I am certain he will weasel his way into your soft human heart and you will do something foolish to foil his progress."

"Er," Daddy looks up at me too, smiling like he does when he says sorry, which I guess is what he's trying to do.

"Take this seriously, Son Goku. You heard that man who claims to be your brother. We were lucky to have defeated him—you will regret leaving him alive. We have no reason to doubt that he indeed has two much stronger allies who may arrive here within the year, as he has warned us." That's a lot of words and I'm trying to figure out what he means, but he keeps talking, "And you saw what your son was able to do to Raditz. We will need to be able to rely on his power." My power? What power? What's he talking about? Did I hurt the big hair guy? He keeps talking like I did...oh no, if Daddy says yes that means that that big green guy is probably gonna be mean to me and hurt me and make me fight and not let me have books and study!

"Daddy!" I yell down. "Daddy! No!"

He kind of leans back and forth from one foot to the other. "Gohan!" he yells up at me. "I'm really sorry, but Piccolo is right! He's gonna be your master for a while!"

I can't keep the hot water off my face.

"It's okay! When I was a kid, I trained under lots of different people! It'll be fun, I promise!"

Fun? I don't wanna even punch anybody. Why can't Daddy teach me the light-in-his-hands thing? That worked. "I don't wanna!" I yell back. "I wanna study!"

He frowns a little bit, thinking. "This is sorta like studying, Gohan!" as he says it he smiles a little bit, like he kind of figured out an idea. "It's like a challenge! You have to study real hard about being a good fighter! You know, Mom always challenges you to do all that math stuff, and," he kinda stops, "uh, stuff?"

I nod. A couple more of the drips from my eyes fall all the way down from where I am on this big tall rock onto Piccolo like raindrops but he pretends like he doesn't notice.

"Well, this is me challenging you! I know you can do it, Gohan! Just think of it like, um," he looks over at Piccolo for some help, but he's still quiet, with his eyes shut, and kind of waiting or something, "like...like Piccolo is your tutor...and...um...he's gonna...give you...homework...but...you have to do it outside. And you have to learn how to look around real careful, and how to move your body real careful, and...stuff like that."

I swallow and nod a little. Maybe it won't be _too _bad. Even if Daddy promised Piccolo that he's never gonna talk to me while Piccolo teaches me, if I was getting hurt real bad, he'd save me, right? "O...okay. How long will I have to?"

"As long as it takes!" Piccolo shouts real suddenly, but his eyes are still closed.

"Piccolo?" Daddy says.

"Are you done giving your son a pep talk?" he asks.

"Uh, I was wondering—" he scratches his head. My daddy always does that. "Maybe whenever we fight, you could make sure I come home looking real bad?"

"I was planning on it," he grumbles, but he finally opens his eyes. "Why?"

Daddy scratches his head even harder, his smile getting real big and kind of nervous. "Well, uh, I wanna tell Chi-Chi that I'm coming out here to try to get Gohan back, but you're just too strong so you keep beating me." Maybe if my daddy's really that alien's brother, the whole reason he can smile that big is 'cause it's a special thing that aliens can do or something. Piccolo kind of chokes on something or another. "You know, so I don't get in as much trouble. And, if she comes out here, you can tell her that."

"You really thought this through," he says.

"Well," his hands go on his stomach, "I like having dinner." Also, usually when Daddy doesn't get to have dinner 'cause Mommy is mad, they don't fight in their room like they sometimes do, because when Mommy is mad, Daddy makes his bed in the living room. Maybe so he can get to breakfast soon the next morning. It's weird, because I thought, wouldn't they fight less when Mommy is in a happy mood? But they fight more. Well, I never actually see them, but it sounds like it.

"Daddy," I call down, "will you bring me some dinner too?"

"No!" Piccolo shouts real loud. "You will be finding your own dinner."

I thought maybe Daddy would get mad at that, but he smiles. "Hey, I used to do that! That's a good idea, Piccolo. When my grandpa died I was about Gohan's age, and I caught my own food in the forest all the time."

Wow. Well, maybe if Daddy did it, maybe I could try it. Everybody said how I look kind of like Daddy. Maybe I can act kind of like him too. Maybe. If I have to. If there's more scary mean aliens coming, and that's why I gotta do this, well, maybe I should really try.

But...I don't know how to catch dinner. My nose feels all sniffly. Maybe I can just pick fruits off of trees. Yeah! But some more water hits Piccolo's head.

"Will you _stop_ that?" he screams up at me. I shake my head. I can't control if it happens or not!

He gives me this look like I'm probably not gonna have very much fun even though Daddy said I would.

Daddy kind of smiles. "Be a good student, Gohan," he says.

And then he's gone.

And then Piccolo disappears.

And now I'm all alone.


	5. I, 5: Raditz

NOTE: You may see that I am numbering the chapters slightly differently (and have added a header to the first). I'm not sure yet whether I want to divide this to arcs within the same story, or make separate stories for each arc, but am leaning toward the former so I thought I'd save myself the trouble and update things now rather than later.

Hope this chapter is okay. I always feel like I'm leaving something out that I should have thought to include, especially because things are moving a bit differently than I thought they would. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

This chapter picks right up where Bulma's left off.

...

"It was a rhetorical question."

A _rhetorical_ question, she says. Like she's too good for _real _questions.

This is almost the worst day of my life. Kakarrot turns out to want to be an Earthling, then beats me by a fluke. Then I'm taken hostage by this stupid woman, this planet doesn't have healing tanks, and she puts me in _pants_.

She sways on back to the door like she's about to leave me in here. "Hey," I say, "at least fucking get me some food."

"Whine, whine, whine," she rolls her eyes, and believe you me, if I had the strength right now I'd get up and punch her straight through that nice, heavy door. What a bitch. I wonder if all the women on this planet are so suicidal. They must be stronger than the men, or else there'd surely be fewer of them around. "Let me guess, you eat like a pig?" she asks.

"What's a pig?" I say, and she grins like it's funny. Whatever.

"Too cute," she does the one-eye-closed thing, and sashays out the door.

Don't get me wrong, it ain't like I'm used to being the strongest thing in the universe. Vegeta and Nappa take care to remind me of that just about every time I do anything worth anything. But, here's the thing: it sure as hell don't sit right with me to be second to my weak little baby brother and this—_human_. Granted, I'll be well soon enough and both of those problems will be fixed, but I don't know how long it'll take me to heal without the tank. There's some pretty fancy shit in this place, I can see through the little window in the room they put me in, but I guess it was too much to expect that a backwater planet like Earth have anything useful.

I guess if I really wanted I could off the woman pretty quick, but, I dunno, she said she's bringing me something to eat, and for an alien with the most obnoxious hair color this side of the galaxy, she's pretty easy on the eyes.

See, 'cause, unlike Vegeta, who thinks he's too good for anything and anyone who ain't a Saiyan (uptight little bastard; I do wonder sometimes if he's _ever _gotten any), Nappa and me don't have a problem with checking out the locals. Now, Vegeta tries to get us to follow along with his whole obsession, keeps us on a short leash and all, but, hell, we're a dying race. Been fucking decades since I've seen a Saiyan female; I was so young back then I doubt my memory even serves me well enough to remember what we did inside that pod together.

The mission I was on while the stupid meteors destroyed our planet was a long one—I made do with no moral qualms. I don't imagine Vegeta _gets_ it (again, I gotta wonder—maybe he's never fucked anyone before, one of those deals where you don't miss what you never had—seems hard to believe he'd hold off knowing what he's missing). So whenever I can, I sneak away from 'im and do as I wish. Wonder on occasion if I don't got a kid or twelve out there, but I ain't inclined to care at present, and besides, if Vegeta caught wind of it I'd say he might go out of his way to off 'em.

Ain't too long before she's back. "I brought you some chicken," she sets down a heaping plate beside me. "And I didn't know what you'd like, so here's some more stuff." Behind her some guy wheels in a cart with about thirty more plates like the first one she set down.

Damn. Yeah, keeping her alive was the right choice. Now if I could just find something to wear instead of these fucking constrictive pants.

"Anyway, I have some important stuff to work on," she glances me over, like she's trying to figure whether I'm suddenly well enough to leap outta bed. She points to a weird thing mounted on the wall right beside my bed. "Press this button if you need to talk to me, if you need any bandages or food or anything," she says.

I shrug and reach over to the food. She sighs all dramatic-like and leaves, but I'm too busy digging in to even answer when the last thing she says before shutting the door is, "Pig."

...

"Hey. Hey!" somebody with the most irritating voice in existence is shoving on my shoulders. My eyes open up halfway.

Aw, shit. It's Kakarrot.

"Hey, I just wanna say, I hope you forgive us for beating you up so bad," he says, grinning this stupid grin and scratching his head. I wonder if it's the same day, because he still looks like he had the tar beaten out of him. He looks around and so do I—the woman is outside the window, bending over something on her table a ways away. "Has Bulma been taking good care of you?"

"Bulma?" I ask. Is that their god around here?

"Yeah, you know, my friend over there," he motions out the window to Miss "Studying My Armor."

"Oh," I shrug, and then look him in the eye. "Why the fuck do you care?"

"I guess I shoulda asked if you've hurt her, but she looks okay," Kakarrot laughs his annoying little laugh. "So, y'know..." he trails off like I actually _know _whatever the hell he was going to say.

"You realize, Kakarrot," I tell him, "that the moment I recover I am going to beat the shit out of you, possibly killing you in the process?"

"I doubt it." That fucking stupid grin.

"Unless," I continue, "you sober the hell up and realize that you aren't one of these people." He doesn't seem to get the point, even though he opens his mouth like he wants to talk, so I add on, "You're a Saiyan, Kakarrot, and if you continue to act like we're the piss of the universe I'm going to have to teach you a lesson."

"Well, it's just, you do mean things," he whimpers. What I wouldn't give to slug him right about now...but I don't want to fall off the bed.

"Look," I grit my teeth, "maybe if you wouldn't have grown up on such a tiny nice pretty little rock you'd know by now that the universe ain't so beautiful. What we do? _Everybody_ does. Well. Everybody who ever had any power." His brows knit like he's trying to pick through my words. "The only difference is, we Saiyans like it. A lot."

"Which is mean," he finishes. Fuck. The man is deaf.

"Please," I don't even try to hold back the growl in my throat. "Don't tell me you've never done anything '_mean_' for a good fight."

"A fight?" he seems to be searching through his tiny little brain. You'd think it'd be easy for him to remember things, given all that extra space he's got from forgetting all the _important _stuff. "I dunno..."

"Where were you just before this?" I ask.

"Fighting Piccolo," he grins, "training and stuff."

"Piccolo," I repeat—right. The green one. The Namekian, or so I suspect.

"Oh!" his eyes are bright like a little tiny star just went supernova in his too-soft skull. "You know, when I fought Piccolo at the Tenkaichi Budokai, everyone was pretty mad I gave him a senzu bean."

"A what?"

"A bean that makes you all better," he grins. "I gave one to Piccolo a while ago, when he was kind of like a bad guy, I guess."

Heh. It's like the fool doesn't even realize he just proved my point. "Ah, much as you are allowing me to heal when you know full-well that I will slaughter everyone on your planet the moment I get the chance. Why ever did you let me live?" I get this guy by now. He's so weak he can't even stand the thought of killing. Unfortunate, but at least it's worth a laugh.

"Oh," he seems to consider it. "Well, I won't let you do that."

Yeah, right. "Kakarrot, you see, you have put your entire precious little world in danger, and I get the feeling it's only because you want to fight me again," I say. He shrugs so I continue, "You merely lack the bloodlust typical of a Saiyan, perhaps because you haven't experienced it yet."

"I'm not doing nothin' like that!" he yells at me, frowning. Ugh—that voice. "Look," he rubs his fingers against his forehead. "I only came here to see how you're doing, okay? I don't like you much," he crosses his arms, "at all. An' it's not like I care whether you're my brother."

"Whatever, Kakarrot," I growl.

His voice becomes vicious, and, frankly, it gives me chills. "My name is Son Goku." The power that would have been there if he were instead asserting himself as a Saiyan... I don't know what to do with him—he disgusts me. To waste what kind of power he could have if I whipped him into shape is a shame. His son seems no better—a crybaby. Still, that power is again something else. If it wouldn't have caught me off-guard, when he burst out of my pod and struck me—

It's a damn good thing I don't have anything else to say, because the door slams shut behind him before I can even respond. Kakarrot and that woman—Bulma—exchange some words and he walks out of the view of my window. Then Bulma marches into my room.

"What the hell, Raditz?" she stomps, slamming the door behind her as she enters, even louder than Kakarrot had. "He was only checking on you! You jerk!"

Whatever. I'm not gonna dignify that with a response. Forget what I said before; 'easy on the eyes' is the last thing she is. Bitch. "Where are my shorts?" Then I have a more important question, "How long was I asleep?"

"Three days," she spits, like she's mad at me about it. "And I've been doing more important things than finding clothes for you in that time."

"Oh," I can't keep my teeth from showing, "completely destroying my pod? My scouter? My armor?"

"Hardly," she says with a dainty condescending little bitch-ass breath of melody. My muscles tighten up. "And, by the way," she comes up to the head of the bed and starts pulling back the covers, glancing up and down my body, or what she can see past these damn tiny clothes. "You still look like shit."

"Eager to die, are we?" I look her in the eye, but she's just glancing over me again. Her eyes stop very pointedly on the portion of my skin between where the top piece of clothing—which was entirely too small—stops, and the stupid pants she put on me start. I stretch a little and her eyes are stuck there. Heh. "I look like shit, huh?"

She gives this exasperated groan and smacks her fist against my chest. Ah—now _this _could be a fun game. I shift my arm just a little and trap her hand where it landed, and her eyes nearly burst out of her head. "Let go," she hisses.

From the way she's standing, I can see straight down her shirt and am reminded of something else. "Why were you looking at my armor if you already have some?" I ask her, still holding her hand against me.

"Armor?" she glances at herself.

With a little effort, I let go of her hand and pull myself up so that I'm sitting, apparently a lot faster than she thought I could because she doesn't even have it in her to jump away, for how surprised she looks. I yank down the collar of her shirt and grab hold of the—oh.

This armor is a lot...softer...than I had expected. Maybe it's not really—

Suddenly there is a very painful burn on my face and I am on my back again. The door nearly falls from its hinges as it shuts and through the window I see somebody with very, very red skin and very, very blue hair scoop up a bunch of papers and storm out of sight.

Dammit.


	6. I, 6: Bulma

NOTE: Well, maybe this will make up for some of those shorter chapters. Anyway...I practically didn't even write this—the characters just did their thing and I was helpless to do anything but record it as it happened. XD

I hope you have as much fun reading this chapter as I did watching it unfold before me.

And I promise some plot stuff will happen soon! Or sometime...eventually...yeah. It's going slower than I thought, no thanks to Bulma and Raditz and their shenanigans, which I hope entertain you nonetheless.

Also, thanks to all of you who have left your comments. They seriously mean a ton to me.

...

Dammit.

Forget that stupid, pushy, only somewhat attractive jerk!

Armor! What a flimsy excuse. He tried to pull my bra off and look at my boobs! Well, I'm not gonna stand for it. Nope. I march right back upstairs because I have much more important things to do, anyway.

I was just being _too _nice to him, I guess. He thought he could do anything he wanted. Well. Boy, is _he _wrong. All _I _wanted was to get to talk to him, ask him about what he does, and maybe along the way figure out something or another about these two alleged "even stronger" Saiyans that are supposedly coming to get him and whatever, you know, to help Son out when he has to fight 'em. I'm inclined to say that guy's all talk, but, well, I guess Son is concerned enough that he's training with Piccolo, and even letting him (Piccolo, for god's sake!) train poor little Gohan. I use the term "train" loosely, because while I don't claim to know anything about that freaky green guy, he gives me the shivers, and seems like the sort who'd, I don't know, nearly kill the kid on a regular basis just for laughs. But Son seems to think he's okay...and I guess Son has always pulled through in the end, so I trust him.

His brother, on the other hand, I am not going to trust with anything, ever, especially given—

The doorbell rings just as I'm walking past the door, about to dump my papers off in the living room and start studying the schematics for repairing the pod there. (I found a little booklet tucked behind the pod's seat, but I can't read it—at least the pictures look useful. That was the other thing I _was _going to do, ask Raditz what it said. Well. Maybe I'll get Dad to ask him. I doubt _he'll_ get molested.)

Of course, I can't answer the door with my hands full, so by the time I run over to the table to set down my papers, the doorbell has rung another time, and finally I swing it open. Oh, thank god. "Yamcha!" I pull him into a tight hug. "You're just who I need to see right now."

He grins. "Yeah?" he asks with a voice full of hope. (You see, he had this look about him that he was ready to start apologizing profusely, probably because a few days ago I filled his answering machine and voicemail with messages about how much I hate him and how I never want to see him again, because he blew off our date and because when he finally answered the phone, I heard a woman's voice in the background. In retrospect, I realize it may have actually been a baseball game announcer, and his game miiiight have gone into extra innings or whatever, and that caused him to be late. But, regardless, I'm a forgive and forget type of person, right? And there are more pressing issues.)

"Yeah," I nod, "that stupid alien just tried to, I dunno, cop a feel or something!"

His eyebrows knit down, like he's torn between the fact that this creep almost beat the shit out of Son and Piccolo and the fact that somebody else is ogling his girlfriend. "You want me to go talk to him?" he finally asks.

It's tempting—I mean, Raditz is pretty much helpless for the time being, so even if Yamcha wouldn't normally be able to beat him, I'd bet he'd give him a scare now, and nothing would be more therapeutic at this moment than seeing that asshole flipping out and begging for his life.

While I'm fantasizing—er—thinking, Yamcha asks, "Why? I mean, how?"

"Well, he was being a major pain, then he trapped my hand and wouldn't let it go, then he looked down my _shirt_, and asked me about the _armor _I was wearing, then all of a sudden he reached in and grabbed my bra! I slapped that bitch right back to where he came from!" I'm getting more worked up just thinking about it again. Yamcha looks at me like I'm crazy, and I realize I've been flailing my arms around and that midway through my explanation I had started screaming.

"Armor?" he kind of snorts, like he wants to laugh (but probably is also pretty sure I will do something unspeakable to him if he does). "Like that stuff I saw him wearing when your dad's plane landed near the pod?"

"I guess," I huff. "I think it was just a front."

"So," now he seems a lot more nervous about it, like thinking about seeing him before reminded him of how Raditz looks. "If you really think that, I can, er, well, give him a piece of my mind..."

Like I said, it's tempting. I wouldn't mind sitting back and watching someone else verbally drill him to the ground. At the same time... "Don't bother," I answer. "I doubt he'll even listen. I don't think he listens to _me_ at all, at least."

"Really?" he raises an eyebrow. Yeah, yeah, I get it, Yamcha. It's impossible not to listen to me, I scream louder than a banshee, blah, blah, blah. You don't even need to say it. "Well, all right," he kind of shrugs, and he looks relieved. I don't think confrontations are really Yamcha's thing, at least not when he's out of his element. Really, he's gotten a lot tamer now that he doesn't live in the desert... Well, whatever.

"You wanna see something cool?" I ask, grabbing his arm.

He stares at me with a deadpan expression. "Is it the ship?"

Okay. He got me. I roll my eyes. "What if it is?"

"I'd rather go grab some lunch with you," is all he says. This actually sounds like a very good idea. I need to get out of here, especially because now I think I hear the fuzzy sounds of somebody trying to figure out the intercom system I set up from Raditz's room a few days ago. Three guesses who that somebody is, and I'll give you a hint—Son is gone, and Dad's cat is sleeping on the couch. Mm-hm. That's right. Raditz is so stupid that I'm comparing him to Son. And a cat. Jerk.

"Yeah, let's do that," I say before I have to think about it any more. Yamcha smiles in thanks (for me not subjecting him to a full tour of how I'm going to go about investigating, exploiting, and repairing the space pod). "What do you feel like eating?"

He seems to consider it for a moment, rocking back and forth on his feet, but then he gets this gleam in his eye. All of a sudden, reaches his hand down my shirt and yanks my bra up off my boobs. "That's how we say 'pasta buffet' on my planet," he snickers, wrapping his arm around my shoulders to hug me as I readjust my bra (_again_). I have to laugh a little, too.

...

You know that one stage of sleep deprivation where you feel like you're drunk? Well, I'm there. It's not my fault I'm not asleep; it's the coffee's. See, I was seriously on a roll with figuring out what this pod is all about just based on the diagrams in the manual, no translation necessary. So I made myself a pot of coffee.

And things were still going great, and I was feeling like maybe I was _made _to understand this stuff. Feeling like once I finish figuring this out, it won't take me too long at all to sketch up something that operates similarly. One of those things where it makes sense once you immerse yourself in it. So I wasn't ready to go to bed. I made another pot of coffee.

Now, I'm used to staying up late. But right now it's about the time my mother (who, I kid you not, wakes up to actually greet the sun every morning) gets up, and the night before last, I had an awful time sleeping because I kept having nightmares that Yamcha was actually Raditz in disguise. Yamcha would come over, we'd start making out, then he'd pull off my shirt, but underneath I'd be wearing Raditz's armor. Then he'd scream, "I knew it, you bitch!" and turn into Raditz and yank it off of me. Then I would wake up. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So right now I am so tired that I'm at the state where if I keep working, I'll probably actually undo my progress. I am genuinely concerned that I am less than one hour away from thinking that the key to operating the pod is to burn the space pod manual for fuel in order to power it. Wait, what? Please tell me I did not just think that. Oh god, it's starting.

Anyway, I didn't think that I would be in this awful a state an hour ago, which is about the time I polished off another pot of coffee.

Never was there a more dangerous drug than caffeine.

I pull out my phone and I'm thinking about telling Yamcha about that nightmare, because I'm sure it's his fault for that stupid little joke he pulled on me when we were about to leave. Well, no, no, it's not, of course. It's Raditz's fault for being such an ass in the first place.

I had somebody else bring him his food today, but that did not stop him from whining into the intercom about once an hour that he did not at all like the pants. These complaints gradually became threats of "I am going to tear these pants to shreds" and then I never heard another peep from him. I haven't even looked in on him since I came down here. I don't know why, but I'm kind of scared to.

Well, I wouldn't be so cruel as to call Yamcha in this state. Anyway, he might already be up doing that whole baseball practice thing, and he gets kind of pissy when I interrupt that. Or as pissy as Yamcha gets. I set my phone down on the desk and spin it around a few times, watching it whirl over my schematics, lit only by the little desk lamp I have on. The rest of the lab is black—no windows to let in the starlight or the streetlights. I only need this little desk light to look at my papers, anyway.

Then, the phone lights up and buzzes. Maybe Yamcha read my mind and decided to call _me_. I peek at the display and frown—it's not a number I recognize. Well, maybe—come to think of it—I actually don't trust myself to recognize anything right now.

I glance at the very empty coffee pot. It's not as if I'm getting to sleep anytime soon. "Hello?" I answer.

"I knew it, you bitch," a voice breathes. I drop the phone and throw the coffee pot at it. I am probably asleep and this is that nightmare all over again and all this won't matter when I wake up anyway, so for good measure I kick the phone as far as I can. It actually flies a fair distance, soaring across the lab almost out of the light produced by my lamp. If I lean to one side, I can follow it in the shadows, just barely, as it topples through the air. I am now certain this is a dream, because kicking things long distances is a skill I have never had.

_Plink_, the phone smacks harmlessly against the very sturdy glass that protects me from that bra-grabbing jackass. I look down at my foot and it seems that a piece of glass from the coffee pot cut into my toe when I swung my foot to kick the phone. But, it's okay, because—

Oh god.

This is usually the part of nightmares where I wake up, when I look at something that should hurt and wince and wait to feel the pain.

I wince.

And there's the pain.

Aaaaand I'm still here, and not in my bed.

Shit.

Far across the lab, my phone buzzes a few more times.

_Plink, plink, plink_, I hear. What? _Plink-plink-plink-plink-plink_. It's coming from around where the phone hit the glass and it's a similar sound.

_Plink._

_PLONK PLONK PLONK._

What the—oh. God. No.

_PLONK. PLONK. PLONK._

I brace myself. In the shadows I can see Raditz's silhouette, his finger against the glass. He looks like the sort of thing I prayed wouldn't jump out from under my bed when I was little. But my phone is over there, and apparently I'm not dreaming, which means I actually have to go get my phone back instead of waking up to find it on the nightstand like I was planning on.

I kind of yank out the one shard of glass from my toe and take care to hop over the rest as I amble over there. I think I have some bandages nearby, anyway, so once I get over to my phone I can sit down and patch myself up. My toe hurts, but that pain is clouded over by more pressing issues.

The noise of Raditz tapping and knocking on the window has stopped, but I can still see him staring at me, his eyes full of evil and meanness and—ugh, I don't even want to think of it. Whatever the case is, he looks mad and I am not dealing with that right now.

Leaving minimal blood (from what I can see in the dim light) on the floor, I manage my way over to my phone and look it over. Doesn't seem to be damaged—good.

Of course that still leaves one question—who the hell was that? And... Well, there are two options, to call the number back and try to find out, or to forget about it. With Raditz's beady little eyes on me right now, I think talking to _anyone _would make me feel better. I dial the number back and hold the phone to my ear, ready to chew out whoever it is for calling me this hour, and using that creepy voice, to boot.

_Breep,_ my phone beeps into my ear as I wait for someone to pick up.

_Briiing_, goes a noise nearby.

_Breep_, goes my phone, but I'm not really paying attention because I'm looking for the noise. I lean against the wall—Raditz doesn't seem to be staring at me anymore, and—

_Briiing_, I hear through the wall beside me.

"Hello," says the smug prick on the other end of the line, who I also hear through the wall.

Shit. That's right. I had the brilliant idea of making it a phone _and _an intercom in case I needed to contact him from outside the compound. And _somebody_ (not going to point any fingers, but it was probably my clueless father, or maybe the guy who brought the food; he always seemed weak-willed, anyway) decided it would be a good idea to tell Raditz what buttons to press to get to _me_.

Shit, shit, shit.

He peeks around the window again, with this sly grin like he thinks he's clever, so I give him the finger. He seems to at least know what _that _means, because he gives me two back.

Oh, fuck this. I am not ready to deal with this asshole just yet. I stuff my phone in my pocket and reach over to the counter nearby where I keep the bandages for such lab accidents as stepping on the shards of a coffee pot I threw at my phone.

I am going to get a good night's sleep after this, and wake up and realize how stupid I was for doing that.

But the bandages aren't there. I look around—likely my father yet again wandered off with them. Drawback of having a genius father: he is absentminded as all get-out. He probably injured his arm, grabbed the bandages, forgot where his arm was, and went off to look for it with the bandages tucked under it. Let us all hope that this is not what happens to me, too, later in life.

I squint through the dim light at his desk—they're not there, but that doesn't mean anything because the only things that _are_ on his desk right now are a fish bowl full of cereal and three books about maximiz—_ewwwww_.

_Plink_, I hear. _Plink-plink_. I look over at the window.

Aaaaand Raditz has the bandages. Perfect.

I march up to the window and ram my fist into the glass right where his cheeky little smirk is. He flinches for a second and my anger is broken long enough for me to laugh a sadistic laugh in his stupid perverted Saiyan face. This does not seem to sit well with him and he takes to pounding both fists against the glass, and he cackles when I shrink away for a second (newsflash, asshole: _I'm_ not the one who purports to be a _warrior_). When I blow him a raspberry he pounds his fists even harder—

—until he disappears with a very noisy clatter.

It's too dark for me to see what happened, so I take a few deep breaths and pace over to the door, opening it and closing it again as quickly as I can, in case he's on his feet and able to run.

When I see him, I am nearly paralyzed.

With laughter.

He had wheeled his bed over to the window to tap on the glass. Here's my guess at what happened: as he was pounding on the window, the wheel slipped back.

And he fell onto the floor.

To add insult to injury, his blanket, twisted awkwardly around his feet, went with him, and he's trying to subtly wrap it around himself—the floor is a bit too cold for his proud warrior ass, I guess.

"Well, fuck you!" he shouts through my chortles as I attempt to stifle them for the sake of my lungs not collapsing in on me.

"Not my fault," I grin down at him. "I wasn't the one flailing around on a bed with wheels."

"Well _I _wasn't the one who's left the light on all night so that I couldn't catch two winks!" he shouts, and as he flounders around on the floor I can see that if not for the blanket around him, he could probably stand, were he were willing to withstand some nasty pain. This is a bit worrisome, as I definitely haven't built anything strong enough to actually restrain him (or at least hold him in here), not yet.

"The light?" I glance over in the direction of where I had been working. From here, my desk isn't visible, but I guess the light from the lamp is. "Thatlittle old light kept you up?"

"Yeah," he answers like he's not even convinced of it himself, until he looks back at me and seems to get mad again. "I figured it was you, so I did what that crazy old man showed me to do to talk to you through this communicator," Raditz points at the phone, "when you ignore me through the 'intercom,'" he adds, probably in an attempt to make me regret ignoring him for the past few days. "And I listened to see if the voice out there matched the voice I heard in here." By now I'm kneading my fingers against the inside corners of my eyes. I am way too tired for this. "I _knew _it was you keeping me up, bitch."

I roll my eyes and bend down reach for the bandages on the floor, but since he's already down there, he's quicker. "All right, asshole," I tell him, "here's the deal. I help you back onto your bed, and you hand over the bandages. It's not as if you're using them, anyway."

"Am too," he frowns, and motions to his arms. He has wrapped the bandages around his forearms and part of his hands.

"You were hardly even injured there," I note, scrutinizing the area.

"I miss my gloves," is his retort, and he turns his nose up. What a baby. I'm sure he doesn't really miss them and he's just doing it to screw with me. Well, jackass...mission accomplished. Prepare to face the consequences. Before he can do anything, I dive for the bandages, hoping to grab the roll in my arms and tuck into a ball around it so that I can roll beneath his bed with them, across to the other side, and make a clean getaway.

But I have failed to plan for what to do if he manages to keep a hold of the roll, which is exactly what happens. I am now awkwardly sprawled on the floor just to his side, half under the bed, with one of my arms wrapped partway around the roll of bandages and the other stretched out, having been flung outward in its attempt to bail on the plan. My hand is in a fist.

And that fist is on his cheek.

And I cannot read the expression on his face.

Shit, shit, shit.

"So," he narrows his eyes, craning his neck so that he's nearly nose-to-nose with me, and I can smell his stale breath. His mane looms behind his head like it's going to consume what's left of me when he's done returning my favor. "You _are _a fighter."

"No!" I shriek, kicking my legs against his through the blanket that's keeping him trapped. He twists his way out of the blanket and my feet are slapping against his ugly, muscular, hairy—bare—legs. I stop, quietly staring at them.

"I hated," he growls, "the pants." I'm about to scream, because, let's face it, the only things between the lower half of this towering homicidal alien and me are a pair of Yamcha's threadbare briefs and my highly fashionable summer skirt. But as I take in a shaky breath and start wondering if my voice works at all, he grins a grin that borders on friendly, snickers, tries to pull himself up, and collapses back onto the floor, back onto his still-healing ribs with a pained groan that makes me wince. "You ain't really much of a fighter, though," he coughs, still grinning. I'm about to tell him that he's one to talk, but I really do not want to tempt fate at this moment.

He holds out the roll of bandages, and after looking him over to make sure he's not about to slug me across the face or something, I snatch them and stand up to set them on top of his bed nearby. "Well, what are you waiting for?" he holds an arm out. If his palm weren't facing toward the wall I'd say he was about to form one of those blast things Son can create...

I blink at him a few times while I try to process things. "What?" I ask. He really can't blame me. I'm tired, I'm hyped up on caffeine, and I'm a just a little frazzled by enduring death threats from a pantsless alien. Well. I guess they weren't death threats. Er. I mean, he really didn't threaten me at all, but, clearly, he _meant _to...so...

"I gave you the fucking bandages, so are you gonna put me up there or ain'tcha?" he looks a little ticked off.

"Yeah," I answer, "okay." Is this actually happening? I mean, I know that before I wasn't asleep but I might have fallen asleep since then. As I help hoist him onto his bed I shift most of my weight to the foot with the cut toe, and it still hurts, and I'm still here, so I guess I'm not asleep. He must hear me take in a bit of a breath at the pain because once he's up on the bed he's looking over me.

"Your foot," he observes. Duh. There's only a small trail of blood across the room from it.

"Why do you think I wanted these?" I grab the bandages. I admit it, I'm a little surprised he doesn't just snatch them back from me. "Anyway, it's just my toe."

"And you're going to wrap it yourself? Ain't that the cutest thing," he seems to chortle, so I narrow my eyes at him. "If you're no fighter then you certainly don't know a damn thing about how to wrap bandages." I roll my eyes at him. Yes, because it takes a genius to apply fabric to skin using basic hand-eye coordination. I'm about to say this but I hear him wheeze a little bit at the exact same time as something very warm hooks underneath either of my arms and lifts me off the ground and onto the bed. He stares at me like he's waiting for something, and then he does grab the bandages from me.

"Hey!" I reach for them, and he extends out a finger to hold me back by the sternum. "Give them back, jerk!"

"Foot," is all he says, and he wiggles his fingers at me, grinning. Before I can even figure out what the hell he means he reaches out and grabs my leg out from under me, taking my foot in his very strong—but ugly—but warm—but murderous—hands. He reaches over for the bandages and tears a strip off with his teeth, and before I can even squeak out a word, he's patting my foot (a little too hard). "Now I bet you couldn't do that so well," he smirks, admiring his work.

My organs are basically trying to explode out of my chest right now, I'm so confused and so something-elsed, and I can't even bring myself to move. My foot just sits there in his hand.

As it turns out, I didn't have to move, because somebody does it for me. I feel my foot suddenly get a lot colder and somebody's arms around my shoulders, yanking me off the bed and pulling me into a hug. "Don't lay a finger on her, you bastard," I hear Yamcha hiss at him past my ear. He directs me out the door and I glance back at Raditz, whose eyes look just about as blank as I feel right now as my mind switches fully into autopilot for all the stress it's endured.

"Hey, Yamcha," I mutter vaguely. I am way too tired and just about ready to fall asleep in his arms. "Good morning."

"What was going on in there?" he runs his fingers through my hair, because he knows it will make me feel better. It makes me even sleepier, and my phone in my lab coat pocket smacking my legs rhythmically as we walk isn't helping. I shrug. "Let's get you some breakfast," he says, "before I leave for practice."

"Sounds good," I murmur, and close my eyes, and then everything is warm and dark.


	7. I, 7: Gohan

NOTE: Sorry Gohan's chapters are always so short. Since he knows so much less, he's tough to write...

...

I didn't think it could happen, but I got down from that rock. I saw my daddy down there sparring with Piccolo, a little ways away, and I guess I knew—that if I would be really really in danger he would save me. So I closed my eyes and jumped and fell...straight into a tree that wasn't there before.

I still don't know how it happened, but I guess at least it did. It was the scariest thing of my whole life. I wonder if my daddy moved the tree there while I wasn't looking.

One other weird thing happened about that time. I thought it was a lot darker in the sky at night and I looked up...and there wasn't a moon anymore. I wonder what happened to it. I haven't seen it since. I wonder if it's anything about the thing my daddy and Piccolo were fighting about before then. Piccolo kept saying it was the moon or my tail and then for some reason he said the moon was better, and something about the other Saiyans. I don't know, but I kind of wonder if Piccolo got rid of the moon somehow.

Daddy and Piccolo have been sparring every single day and they always fight really hard. Whenever I go past, Piccolo keeps looking at me like he's expecting something, but, I dunno, I dunno what he wants and I guess I've just been keeping to myself. I learned that I really don't like killing animals but I gotta if I wanna stay alive and eat and stuff so to make up for it sometimes I try to be real nice and give them extra food if I got some.

Sometimes I sit there in the trees real quiet and listen to Daddy talk to Piccolo. At first Piccolo took me far away every time. Actually, he threw me. But I got sneakier and sneakier and now he hardly ever notices me there. I think. And that's where I am right now, being real quiet in a tree, and sort of focusing in on my body to make all the energy coming out of it crunch up inside me so it doesn't ripple out to Piccolo. It's kind of a weird feeling, to think that there's no energy rippling out of me, because I found out there's even energy rippling out of bunnies and birds, and I have a lot more energy than they do. Only right now, it's all deep deep inside my stomach.

"Again, Son?" Piccolo says. "It's useless and you know it."

"I know," Daddy scratches his head, "but it's...I dunno, it's like he ain't even _trying _to listen to me, but I know for _sure _he listens to Bulma and her dad and..."

Oh, they're talking about the scary alien who's my uncle. Daddy keeps going to visit him, I guess, and tell him how he should be good. I heard him saying how he's still not recovered yet from the fight so he wants to try to make him good before he gets all better so they don't gotta fight just to save the planet, but they can fight for fun instead. I don't think it's working really well. Sometimes when Daddy shows up he's got a big old bruise over his cheek like my mean alien uncle punched him there.

"You had best focus on training, Son," Piccolo seems kind of mad. "You will have to fight him one day, and you _will _have to kill him—and his friends, if they are coming to Earth as he asserted." He frowns. "A wise man would kill him now. But your family affairs are not my business, so I will not take it upon myself."

"I can't do that," Daddy says, and I think I feel the same way he does. He laughs like he feels bad about it, like he's nervous, too. "He'll come around," he adds on.

Then all of a sudden another guy shows up. I can kind of tell from the energy rippling out of him that he's the same guy who was here before, and then he gets closer and I know it 'cause I recognize his face.

"Yamcha!" Daddy says. "You come here to join us again?"

He says again because this guy has been sparring with Daddy every now and then too. He doesn't spar with Piccolo very much at all, maybe because he thinks Piccolo is pretty scary, which is sort of what I think but not as much as I did before when he took me. I mean, he is sort of scary, but, I guess I'm getting better at all kinds of things just because of living outside here, and that was his idea anyway. He somehow just knew that it would help.

One day Yamcha came here and he was really, really mad. I didn't really understand everything that he said, but he said something about my mean uncle doing something, and something about Bulma, who I remembered is the blue-haired lady who was nice to me. He said he wants to get strong and I think maybe he wants to beat up the guy, I guess. He said my uncle is real slowly getting better and he wants to make sure he doesn't do anything to Bulma.

"Sure am," he has this really determined smile. "Hey, Goku, I was thinking, maybe today you and I could team up and fight Piccolo?"

Daddy kind of grins. "Don't you think that would be kinda unfair?"

Piccolo laughs. "I am more than a match for the both of you," he gets into a fighting pose. I dunno if that's true, though. Daddy puts up a pretty good fight against Piccolo and this Yamcha guy is getting pretty strong too. Before I even know what I'm doing, I jump out of the tree and stop holding the energy in my tummy and everybody's looking at me.

"If I fight on Piccolo's team it will be more fair," I say. Daddy looks really, really happy, so I smile back. I think he's proud of me. I'm kind of scared of fighting, but if my mean uncle keeps hitting my daddy even when he's injured, and if he has two stronger friends coming, well, I don't want something even worse to happen to anybody. Even Daddy can't always save me, I guess, like when I got taken away by my mean hairy uncle. Anyway, it's just for practice and I don't gotta do it all the time, I can just test to see if Piccolo and Daddy were right and if I really did learn the lessons Piccolo wants me to learn by putting me out here in the wilds.

"Just try not to get in the way," Piccolo says, but when he looks down at me he has sort of a smile too. I mean, he's Piccolo, so it looks really mean, but compared to how he normally looks, I'd say he's smiling. I think he's proud of me, too.

...

I didn't do as great in the fight as I thought I would, and I got really beat up, like the first time I tried to catch a dinosaur that kept bothering me anytime I went to sleep, but I think that's okay because now that Daddy and Piccolo are finally done, Daddy comes over and rubs his hand in my hair. "That was great, Gohan," he says, and then he hugs me and puts me back down. It feels so nice...I haven't had a hug for a really long time.

Yamcha, my daddy's friend, who lasted a little bit longer than me but not as long as Daddy and Piccolo, kinda nods too. "I can't believe how strong you are," he says, "for such a little kid."

"It's a start," Piccolo says from far away, his voice all serious like usual. "Gohan, you will join our sparring sessions henceforth."

Daddy looks at me with this sparkle in his eyes, like he can't wait to see what I say about that. Wait—that means that from now on I can see him every single day! Maybe it won't be so bad, to fight every day, if I also get to be with my daddy. And he looks so happy—I don't think I've ever seen him this happy. I grin and Daddy grins too and he scoops me up into the biggest hug he ever gave me. "I'm so proud of you, Gohan," he says, squeezing me tight.

"For _what_?" a different voice says. "For gettin' all scruffy and falling behind on his books?"

Uh-oh. "Mommy," I kind of whimper.

"I see how it is," she climbs out of the car that just showed up nearby. "You think I didn't wonder a _little _bit why you still haven't managed to bring Gohan home?" She smacks the back of my daddy's head. "Well, the field trip is over," she grabs me by my shirt, "and my son is coming back home where he belongs!"

"Unhand him," Piccolo growls. "He must train lest the two other Saiyans prove themselves as strong as Raditz has threatened."

"Try me!" Mommy shrieks, and it hurts my ears. I hug close to her because I don't know what's going on, really, but I know from what I've seen that I might be strong but I definitely can't fight my mommy. "And you, Goku, are coming home with us for dinner!"

Piccolo just sort of narrows his eyes at her, but he must know that she's real strong, too, and real scary, because he doesn't say anything else, just turns his back away. "Son, you will return to spar with me tomorrow."

Daddy kind of nods at Piccolo and hangs his head and gives Mommy this shy grin.

"I don't care what you do," Mommy says to Daddy as she buckles me in to the car, "but Gohan is not going to fall behind on his studies just so that you can teach him to be a scruffy, good-for-nothing," she stops and looks daddy over, "...dog!"

"Aw, Chi," Daddy says, "I wasn't doing none of that."

The car starts and Mommy tears out of the big field we were sparring in, on our way back home. I kind of turn around to look back, and I see Piccolo watching me, his eyes right on me. I feel like he's trying to tell me something. I don't know why, but seeing him facing toward me, looking straight into me as we leave, makes me feel stronger inside.

I don't know what I'm gonna do, now that Mommy's taking me home. But I know I'm gonna find a way to make Piccolo proud.


	8. I, 8: Raditz

NOTE: Bumped up the rating...just to be safe.

I wasn't planning on staying up until 4:30am to finish writing this chapter, but I wanted to do it all in one go. I hope it's coherent. Hey, look, something happened to the plot!

And, since *cough* I can't actually write a proper reply, I want to take this tiny space to thank one "Iron lad" for those very kind, thoughtful, and inspirational comments. I _would _respond to each one, buuuuut, given that you don't have an account and I don't want to have miles-long notes like this one before every chapter, well... (I'm just giving you a hard time, of course, but I want you to know that I read and appreciate each of your comments. I just try not to suck up a bunch of space at the beginning for notes so I'm not responding here; hope you understand. By the way, I'm flattered that you almost considered getting an account because of this story. XD I hope it lives up to your expectations.)

All right, enough of that. Story time!

...

I'm getting better. It's real slow—much slower than if this planet had had a goddamned healing tank—but I'm getting better.

This woman Bulma seems to have noticed. I see her scurrying around her lab almost nonstop now; I didn't think it possible for something like a human to stay awake for so many hours straight, but she does it. I don't think I could stay awake that long short of if I'm caught in battle the whole time. But that's how all us Saiyans are. I told her this a few days ago. She said, with her eyes narrow like she was tryin' real hard to nail me against the wall with 'em, "No rest for the wicked, I suppose." Then she snickered to herself while she was walking out. Until I told her that by that token she's wickeder than me. Thenshe laughed. It was a joke, but I'm starting to believe it's true; nothing outside a' Hell could do the kinds of things she manages.

For instance: this morning she came in here with her nose up holding a big chunk of something or another. "Raditz," she said, looking down at me and dropping the stupid thing on my lap, "can you break this?"

I know a challenge when I hear one. But, damn, that stuff was solid. I couldn't manage it.

And now she has some crew putting it up as my new walls, an' I see her through my window working on something else, looks like a clear version for the window. I'm like a regular little exhibit down here, I swear.

Even got visitors and everything.

Well, one.

Kakarrot.

Comes back about every other fucking day trying to persuade me to be _good_, to "call my buddies off," to _spar _with him, godforsaken traitor to the Saiyan race, for _fun_. Every now and again I slug him across the face to remind him who I am, and that he shouldn't a' managed to beat me anyway. I think he's getting scared, but he's a persistent little bastard. Meanwhile, he's deaf to my much more sensible offers. Shit, joining up with me and Nappa and Vegeta would solve all his problems, so far as I can see. They might be talked into leaving this stupid planet alone in exchange for him an' his whelp; weak though they are, they could be whipped into shape easy enough. Especially by Vegeta.

Bulma don't like that I beat some sense into him occasionally, but she's stopped yelling at me about it. Maybe Kakarrot told her to quit her bitching, that he's a big boy and he can take it; but, so far as I can see, he ain't, and she likely just gave up on it entirely.

Speaking of Bulma, she called me up on that contraption not long ago, said she was getting me something to wear to replace those godawful tight pants I tore up. Asked me my _size_. Assuming you're thinking the same thing as me, the only thing that question can mean from what I can tell, well, you'd be the sensible one. But she ain't. No. Screamed and hollered at me until I figured I oughtta just put that so-called 'phone' back on the wall. I mean, shit. You ask a man his size, what's he gonna tell you?

So instead she brought damn well near an entire clothing shop into my room with some magical pill-looking thing. (Apparently by size, she meant to ask how wide around my waist is.) She screamed and hollered some more and told me I was trying on the shorts here and now. Stood with her arms over her stupid voluptuous human chest and tapped her foot on the floor until I pulled on each of the garments and showed her it did or didn't fit. Her face got redder and redder as we went and I reckon it was from all that tapping and all that huffing. Meanwhile I got myself a raging hard-on which must a' come from all those shorts going on and off my lower half; sure as hell couldn't have been anything else since by that time all I was doing was staring at her disgustingly round ass as she turned and faced into a corner, bright bright red in the face.

Fine—fine. So I might actually think this witch is the slightest bit attractive. But I'm desperate. So. I'm not up to trusting my judgment just now.

And anyway, she has that human boy fawning over her constantly, so she's probably getting plenty and not near as blinded by desperation as I gotta be by this point.

I mean, fucking _blue_ hair. Ridiculous.

...

By the nighttime, my new little cage is done. All the crew's gone and since I'm well enough to stand again, I get up and pound the walls, the glass, every little corner to test it.

Shit, I hate this feeling.

But when I'm better, I'll be stronger—and I'll blast a goddamn hole through this thing. I don't wanna try it just yet—make her forget that I can do it so she don't build something that's _everything_-proof.

"What the _hell_ do you want?" she swings the door open. The human she calls Yamcha is behind her, glaring at me like he thinks I give a damn about him. I could do him off even right now.

"Just testing it," I answer, grinning a little just to piss her off. "You sneaky bitch."

Her boy steps forward a couple steps so he's almost through the door. "Hey!" he says to me. He must feel so clever.

"Don't worry about it, Yamcha," she says, patting his back and giving him a disgustingly cute little kiss on the cheek. "He's just an asshole," she then adds on, staring me straight in the eye as she says it. I grin even bigger 'cause it's true.

"Well, Raditz," he keeps talking anyway, "let me tell you this—if you hurt her, you die." Kid seems more confident about it then he did last time he threatened me not to touch her—like she needs _his _defense on that front. So far as I can tell laying a finger on her's about like digging your grave on the surface of a star, so what's the use of his little campfire threats?

"Whatever," I say, and for good measure jab up my middle finger at him. "I ain't interested. That woman is ugly as shit anyway." He looks at me like he's gonna explode at me for it, and Bulma just gives him a little shove and leads him out the door. I can't hear them so well outside through these new walls, but if I press my ear up against one of 'em, it sounds like she's telling him off. Well, at least somebody realizes that fool is gonna get hurt if he keeps up what he's doing. And I suspect he's even weaker than Kakarrot. Wonder if a cuff on the face'd spin his head clean around...

About ten minutes later, Bulma comes back. First thing she says when she comes in the door is, "Don't harass him like that." Then, she does the closing-one-eye thing, which from what I gathered ain't a symptom of a disease, but rather something humans do to look cute an' curry favor and so on, and goes on, "Besides, I _know_ you don't think I'm that ugly."  
"I do," I answer.

"Look," she says, coming up to the bed, which I've sat back down in since listening to her and that boy leaving. "I know that one of these days you're going to recover enough to get out of here." She looks pretty concerned, brows all bunched together in the middle. "From what I read on your scouter," I'm about to reach out and grab her by the collar, to shake her up and see if she has it, but she must know, 'cause she adds, "which is hidden away _far _away from you," and goes back to her normal, not-about-to-slit-my-throat voice, "you're getting stronger every day, and Son agrees. I'm not sure if I can build something strong enough fast enough."

"Great," I say, and lean close to her and grin my toothiest grin because it scares the shit out of her. Except, apparently, this time, when she just stares right back at me. Maybe I've been using this one too much.

"I want you to promise you won't, I don't know, blow up the Earth or something," she plants her hands right against her hips as she says it.

I roll my eyes at her—she hates it because she always does it to me. "I wouldn't blow this mudball up," I tell her, and it's the truth, "since it's worth a fair amount of money. I'd just wipe all you nasty humans out."

"Oh?" she lifts one of those disturbingly blue eyebrows, "Including the one who's fixing your space pod as we speak?"

I shrug. "Doubt it'd be much trouble for Vegeta and Nappa t' bring me a new one. Likely they'll call in for one soon's they get down here and find me. Maybe I can fix it myself; it's not as if I've never done it before. Or I can kill you and find that goddamn scouter, and call for one myself, sooner."

She don't seem to like this. "So you'd kill me?" she asks. "After I've fed you and everything?"

Which is ridiculous, so I laugh. "You can still feed me," I say, "once I've roasted you." This is too much for her, I guess, because she backs up until her ass smacks against the wall, a look of complete horror in her face. This is priceless, so I've gotta continue. I look her up and down for effect, and then lick my lips and add, "Thighs might be good..."

I was thinking she might run away, but she doesn't. She's real pale and I wonder for a second if she died right on the spot—which would be hilarious, but a real shame.

"Bulma?" I say.

"Y-you wouldn't..." she stutters, and I'm a little surprised that knowing she ain't dead somehow makes my chest less tight, "...really...do that...would you?"

Don't know if it's a great idea to screw around with her cute little human brain anymore, in case she really does die next time, so I just say, "Naw."  
"Promise?" she asks, still stuck against the wall.

"Damn," I say, in a nice soft voice that'll maybe unfreeze her, "you drive a hard bargain." I act like I'm considering it, but only for a second. "Fine."

Truth be told, I might've, had the chance come up—I mean, a Saiyan's gotta eat and I've never tasted human before; everything's worth a try once. But something tells me if I do it to her she'll come back from the dead just to make my life miserable for it. Probably she will whether I do or not, just to fuck with me, since she seems to have so much fun doing that. I'm too distracted imagining a ghost of her hiding from me in my hair to see her come back up to the side of the bed.

What snaps me out of my distraction is her slapping me.

Hard.

I do not understand human women. But from the sound of it (by which I mean the words of Bulma's father, that Yamcha boy, and Kakarrot, who's damn near one of them), neither do human men.

Then she stares at me real intently, which is new. Usually when she slaps me, she marches right out. "Aren't you going to say sorry?" she finally says, her voice quiet and dangerous, and it quivers just a little bit like she's just barely containing something.

"For what?" I say. Hell if I know what she's talking about. Is there some part of this slapping ritual that I'm not following?

She throws her arms into the air and almost bashes her head into my nose when she straightens back up. "For _threatening to eat me_, _that's fucking what_!" she screams, and starts pounding against my chest with her cute little balled-up fists. I watch her for a little while, 'cause I'm fairly certain if I say anything she's not gonna hear it over her incoherent rambling anyway.

"—_and I sure as hell am not a dessert_!" I catch the tail end of it. She shouts a primal shout and starts pounding on my chest again, and this time I reach over real carefully (not that she notices) and put one hand on either side of her waist, lifting her up above me so her arms just swing all crazy-like but don't hit my chest. (They do hit my arms, but, hell, I can take it.) Gradually she comes to stop moving, and she's breathing like crazy, I imagine from all the yelling and swinging body parts around. She dangles there awkwardly and real pointedly makes an effort not to look at me.

Hell if I know what to do, but I think I fucked something up pretty bad because now there's water dripping from her face and it ain't sweat. She twitches a little but is mainly pretty quiet—for once. For some reason I don't feel so great about this quiet. From where my hands are on her waist I can feel her muscles spasm ever time she takes in a breath. Shit.

"What did I do?" I say. I mean, she arready told me, but I'm not exactly ready to believe all that fuss was just over _that_.

She mumbles some halfhearted curses at me, not nearly as colorful as her usual, kinda like her skin just before she started screaming. Maybe she's ill all of a sudden. I don't know how it is with humans, but when something catches me my skin gets pretty hot. Granted, their skin seems cooler anyway, so I dunno if I can tell between the usual and a little hotter than the usual. Guess if her skin feels like mine there's bound to be something wrong... Kinda slowly, so I don't surprise her, I lower her back down so that she's lying on me, and press one hand on her face. She don't feel too hot; her skin's pretty normally cool. Her eyes are all red but I gather that's from the crying.

Finally she looks straight at me and bites her lip. "Raditz," she says, and I ain't never heard my name spoken so quietly. My guts feel weird at the sound of it.

"What now?" I say, and I can't keep looking at her, because the more I do, the weirder my innards get. I press her head down against my shoulder so she won't try to look at me again, and she sort of nuzzles in. Weird.

"Don't let your friends eat me, either," she whimpers.

"Naw," I say. Anything to make her stop acting up. Her face is ugly as fuck with her eyes swollen and trails that tears burned down her cheeks.

"Promise?" she asks, with her head turned just a little so her breath goes in my ear.

Shit. Maybe it's her tits against my chest that make me promise things I can't. Maybe it's her tongue right by my ear. Maybe it's my goddamn innards. "Sure."

...

Once I got better, all it took was a flash of light. Bulma was right when she said I'd get stronger faster'n she could box me in. It was only a few days after that first new layer she made that I was fully recovered.

It was glorious, all of it. The way he choked on his stupid grin, his eyes and the way they looked at me like I was the traitor—the hole through his chest when he finally got what I shoulda given him before. The hole through the wall that I tossed him past, so he could lie there and rot on the surface of his precious Earth.

I don't know what I'm gonna do next, with that done, my heart pounding from the excitement. Maybe I should hunt down that Namekian bastard. Maybe I should kidnap Kakarrot's spawn and train him myself, to be a proper Saiyan and make his uncle proud. Maybe I should blow out a few towns to make sure I remember how it feels. Maybe I should find that scouter and tell Vegeta and Nappa that Kakarrot was a waste of time, anyway.

I don't have much time to muse on it before a massive jolt from behind me knocks me to the ground.


	9. I, 9: Bulma

NOTE: Some of this gets a little intense (I think), so if you're really squeamish or have a particularly vivid imagination/ability to visualize, you've been warned.

On a more reflective note, by my count I wrote approximately 418 pages of fanfiction this year. (I also did over 97 drawings, most of them fanart.) Here's to hoping I can manage as much in 2011! I also want to thank everyone who has reviewed anything of mine this year. How about starting into 2011 strong and leaving me your thoughts on this very chapter? *grin*

I hope you enjoy this chapter! Whew!

...

I don't remember if the crash or the screams came first, but I recognized that voice the second it hit my chest, and the laugh that followed gave me shivers. I was nearly flying down the stairs, hardly thought as I grabbed a cleaver when I ran past the kitchen, plotted out in my mind where in the lab anything was that I could use as a weapon. Were Raditz's comrades here, or was it really—

Before I could even round the corner to the set of stairs down to my lab, I heard another crash, a yelp, and a voice screaming almost incoherently—Son?

And here I am, breathing heavily at the door to my lab—but it's already been kicked down. I stumble toward the source of the noise, still gripping the cleaver as I try to decipher what's happened. The screaming persists, and I round the corner to see that it's little Gohan—only he's somehow quite older than when I saw him two months ago, and his hair is getting shaggy, nearly standing on-end as he shouts, "You're gonna regret this!"

I follow his eyes to the torn-down room I kept Raditz in, over to Raditz himself. His eyes are bright with rage and he's grinning the devil's grin. From the angle he's standing at I can see fresh blisters on his back, and I'm certain it was somehow Gohan's work: there's no one else in sight but these two. But...Son was...

Oh, god.

I notice it as soon as Gohan takes one determined step forward, and another, looking past Raditz and through the gaping hole in the wall that leads to the outside. Son's body is crumpled on the lawn, unmoving, and I know it was him from whom I heard the first scream. Without thinking I make a dash for him, my feet smacking against shrapnel—bits of the wall—as I run dizzily to the brightness that is the outside. I notice vaguely that I'm still holding the cleaver, and my hand is clinging to it even tighter than before.

"Not so fast," Raditz steps in front of me, and I don't have time to stop—I stumble over his foot and the cleaver tumbles out of my hand, just out of reach. "Both of you," he adds, and charges a bright ball in one of his palms, eyes fixed on Gohan now that I'm down. I can't breathe as I wonder if this is how Son died, some angry ball of energy eating up his insides. Panic racks around my ribs—without Son, who's left? we'll all die, all of us—and Gohan seems frozen to the spot, suddenly, and quaking visibly. I feel a low laugh rumble out of Raditz as the ball gets bigger, his tail thrashing about like a cat's before pouncing on a mouse; from my closeness I can nearly hear excitement humming from him and it only makes my heart pound harder. "If you don't join me," Raditz says; I can't see his face but I can tell he's still grinning, "you're going to join your daddy."

"I can't," Gohan says with conviction that's nearly lost in the tears on the corners of his eyes.

Raditz laughs. Oh god—he's going to do it. The ball gets bigger and Raditz seems to brace himself for the recoil. Gohan's knees are shaking almost as much as my insides, and the panic makes my blood feel like fire as it pounds through me; I choke as my breathing becomes so fast that it tries to come in and out at the same time. My muscles tighten and before I can think about what I'm doing, I do it—I lunge for the cleaver and throw it over my shoulder at Raditz. My eyes are too blurred for me to see where it goes, or if it does anything, but I can discern Raditz moving in shock, and Gohan leaping over him, his little hands connecting with the back of Raditz's neck before the massive Saiyan crumbles to the ground. I rub my eyes and find Gohan looking off to the side, lip quivering.

"Did you kill him?" I whisper.

"No," says Gohan, his voice much louder, and it reminds me of his father's. "I...I couldn't. But you almost did." He looks down and balls his fists, and he sobs out, "I almost wish...that you wouldn't have missed."

I glance back at Raditz, and I can see his chest subtly rising and falling. "How long until he wakes up?"

Gohan just shakes his head—he doesn't know, and how would he? I pull myself to my feet, and discover the hard way that I twisted my ankle when I fell. My arms are scraped up from landing on the chunks of the wall that had been destroyed. Wincing a little, afraid of what I might see, I peer outside at Son, and tiptoe over the debris, stepping over what remains of the wall.

What I see is revolting—singed skin with burns that continue into to what may have once been organs and bones, blood everywhere. It is an ugly death for someone as beautiful as Son. He can come back, I remind myself—as long as nothing happens to the dragonballs; as long as nothing happens to Piccolo or Kami. But it will be impossible to erase this image. Gohan has come closer, but it seems he can't bring himself to look, and I'm glad for that. I close the lids of Son's eerily half-open eyes, shivering at the lukewarmth of his skin.

As I pull my hand back, he disappears.

"The work of Kami, no doubt," a deep voice echoes from the roof just behind me. It's Piccolo, but I haven't the energy to be afraid. "He must have plans for Son Goku in the afterlife."

"You think?" I mutter. For a moment I wonder if Piccolo could hear me over Gohan's quiet crying—but of course he could, with those ears.

"Yes," he answers, voice bitter, "I suspect so." When he leaps from the roof and touches down a distance away, Gohan stumbles over to him, wrapping an arm around his leg.

"Raditz killed my daddy," he whimpers.

"I know," Piccolo stares down at him, his long fingers inches from brushing through his hair. "Now you see why we must train for when the other two arrive."

"Do you think they're really coming?" I ask. I mean—maybe he's bluffing. God, I hope he's bluffing.

We all jump as a voice echoes between us; for a split second I think Raditz has woken up, but this voice is far too calm and wise. "_Piccolo is correct to insist on training_," it says—Kami's voice. "_I feel great peril in Earth's future. What it is, I cannot see_," he says, "_I know only that my death is disconcertingly near_."

"How near?" Piccolo demands.

"_Even this is foggy_," comes the answer, and Kami's voice sounds ridden with dread, "_No less than a year, but I am not sure how much more_._ Perhaps two years._" He pauses, and we all wait—I imagine Gohan's heart is as still as mine, and even Piccolo's, if he has one. "_For this reason I have taken Son Goku. I will request for him special training in the afterlife. Let us hope that it will be enough._"

"So I shouldn't wish him back with the dragonballs?" I ask, glancing at where his body had rested and imagining the boy I met haphazardly, now a man, on his way to becoming a god if Kami thinks that after his he'll stand a chance of beating Raditz's two far stronger (if what he says is true) Saiyan friends. It was because of the dragonballs that we met—but I never would have imagined them becoming our pass to the afterlife and back. Some god along the way must feel cheated.

"_Wait until a year has passed_," Kami finally says. "_So he may get all the training he can and still arrive in time to defeat this threat. That is much better than risking the threat arriving first—lest I die before you can wish him back._" I can hear him breathing heavily. "_Even if I do not make it, the Earth may still—and perhaps Son can even change our fate_."

"A year," I say, "all right." After I close my eyes for a moment, making sure I have this date committed to memory—not that I wouldn't already—I can feel, somehow, that Kami is no longer present. I turn to Piccolo and Gohan. By now, Gohan has stopped clinging to Piccolo's leg, and he looks determined—probably heartened by knowing that his father will be back.

"I'll be a good student," he says quietly to Piccolo, his eyes pinned to the little puddles of blood that haven't quite been soaked into the ground yet, to a little scrap that tore away from Son's clothes as whatever Raditz fired tore through him. Gohan takes a few steps forward to grab the cloth, and tucks it in his pocket before looking up into Piccolo's eyes. "Teach me everything."

"Then come," he turns away. "This is not the place for it." Before he takes to the air, he looks back at me, and at the hole that goes back into the lab. Piccolo's eyes pierce into mine and I wonder briefly why Gohan would subject himself to it—but I know. "He is still unconscious," he tells me, eyes lingering on Raditz's body. "I trust you will deal with him appropriately."

I shiver a little bit, and I can't think of anything to do but nod. This seems to be enough assurance for Piccolo, and he lifts into the sky.

"Mister Piccolo," Gohan says, his fists balled and eyes averted. Poor kid's embarrassed about something. "I can't fly yet. Can you carry me?"

"You will run," he growls. "And you will keep up." I open my mouth to offer a plane—but clamp it shut at the look that Piccolo gives me. Before I can blink, he's gone, and I can hear the already-distant thump of feet on the sidewalk as Gohan sprints after him.

My heart is deep in my gut, or maybe it's the other way around—either way, they're both buried in my throat as my mind turns to what I have to do now. If I don't kill him, it might be much less than a year before we can't use the dragonballs, and I know when he comes to, I'll be helpless to stop him—he'll probably kill me (probably cook me and chew me up and spit me out just to spite me), find his scouter, and leave for revenge on Gohan.

Somehow, these thoughts don't make it any easier for me to tiptoe back into the lab, across the floor, and over to the cleaver; don't make it easier to pick it up; don't make it easier to hold it as my fingers shake uncontrollably. I try to imagine Son, dead. I try to imagine his scream as I hover over his brother, trying to decide where...

I can see a little pool of blood underneath his head and I crane my neck around to see that he has a cut that seems to have nearly taken his eye out—slashing both the protrusion above his brow and down over his cheek, but not through the eye itself. This must be what Gohan meant when he said I had nearly killed Raditz, and now as I am getting ready to do what I have to, I'm wishing I wouldn't have missed, too. His nose flares each time he takes in a shallow breath, and unlike Son's body, his is still hot—hotter than a human's, I've noticed. His tail rests limply over one leg, and through the hole that's been burned through his shirt, I can see where it connects up to his back. With all this time I've spent trying to make sure he couldn't escape, I've hardly had the chance to study the Saiyan physiology.

But that's not why I'm hesitating, is it?

Some people look as calm as they might in heaven when they're asleep. Raditz doesn't—every crease on his face screams that he's ready for war, that while he sleeps he's making deals with the devil to keep him alive a bit longer, to make him stronger, to let him suck up in the unholiest of ways all the life he's drawn out of others—which, I'm getting the impression now, is quite a lot.

His stupidly messy mane flutters every time he breathes out, and I wonder if even in his unconsciousness he can taste the blood that drips down from his brow into his mouth.

I brace myself with the cleaver against the back of his neck. I know I'm strong enough to do this. This is the man who killed Son in cold blood, and god knows how many more before him. He's awful and anything he ever did for me was just a ruse to keep somebody from killing him sooner. The stupid insults to make me think I could take him on if I had to—the comment about killing and cooking me just to shake me up. Wrapping my toe—he just didn't want more blood on his floor, or...that promise he made was a lie, and...

Yamcha probably did a lot of awful things as a desert bandit, but nobody ever killed him...

Raditz just grinned like he did to fluster me, though, and—to—and that whole stupid thing about the pants was just—and I'll be letting everybody else, down, anyway, if I don't, so...

He only...

Shit.

I hope don't regret this.

Before I can think twice, I run over to the storage room for a flask of the kind of chemical even _my_ father always warned me about, and kneel back down beside Raditz, willing my hands to remain steady as I remove my jacket and by sheer force of will rip it in half down the seam in the back. I stuff as much as I can into his slack mouth and uncap the flask. I need it near, and I pray it won't fall over on me if he has a spasm—and he will. I dip a corner of the cloth in to make sure it'll work—and to my relief, it takes at least a few seconds before the cloth starts dissolving.

All right.

This is it.

I'm going to do this.

I wrap one hand around his tail near the base, and with the other I grab the cleaver and slice his tail off, wincing as the cleaver catches midway through but forcing myself to finish the job. I hear the breath hitch in his throat, and I lift my heel from beneath me to pin it to his lower back (as if that will hold him down) as I reach for the flask, dunking the cloth in and taking a deep breath as I press it—_hard_—against the stump that remains.

A wild scream tears through the dead air and I throw the flask across the room just in time, as he kicks me to the floor. I land heavy on my palms and we lock eyes—his are full of murder; mine are stronger than I thought they ever could be as I stare back. His arm shoots out and he grabs me by the front of my shirt as he tears the cloth out of his mouth. "_You...will...die_," he hisses through labored breaths.

"Not so fast," I bark, wondering briefly if I'm someone else, or how else I'd manage to sound so calm. As my heart pounds out of my chest, I stretch my leg partway over him and bend my knee until my heel presses just above the stump. He screams in a way that assures me he is Son's brother, and I desperately hope I don't regret this. "Your tail is gone for good," I tell him quietly, "but there's one way to get it back."

"Fuck," he says, unmoving, and manages to mouth a, "what?"

I lift my heel off of him and crane my neck so that I'm inches from his face. "Me."


	10. I, 10: Gohan

NOTE: Hmm, Gohan chapters are the toughest. I hope this one's okay!

...

Daddy.

I couldn't stop him.

He almost killed me.

Your friend Bulma saved me.

And then Piccolo saved me too.

...

Piccolo is sitting nearby right now, his legs and arms crossed like they always are when we're not training. He's mad at me and I haven't figured out why yet—just keeps telling me I was stupid, and keeps telling me I should have told him, and keeps yelling things that don't make sense, like these kids I saw one day when Mommy took me with her to go grocery shopping, when I told them I couldn't be friends because my house is too far away. He yells something and leaves for a bit, and I feel his energy rippling off him in the way mine does when something makes me so mad I want to cry—when I can't hide it away inside my stomach.

Piccolo says I was reckless and he says my daddy was even more reckless. But I already knew that.

When Mommy took me home all those days before, I decided something. I decided I wanted to see Daddy look all happy like he did when he hugged me. I decided I wanted to see why Piccolo was looking into my eyes like that when we left.

I decided that every single night after Mommy went to bed I would go outside to where Piccolo was, and ask him to spar with me. Soon Daddy found out about it, and he came, too. It was our secret. I only stayed out for a little bit every night, so I wasn't too tired when I woke up.

Two days ago Daddy came back at night to train after he visited Raditz (who is not my uncle at all). There was a big blackish-blue blotch on his eye and he kept putting his hand on his wrist. His leaned more against one foot and he kept moving his shirt to make sure we couldn't see his shoulder. He said he thought he was almost there, like Raditz almost maybe might have given the Earth a chance. He said he was gonna go visit Raditz the next morning.

But I didn't want him to get hurt so bad again. So I snuck after him, with my energy tucked up in my tummy. I waited by the door that goes into Bulma's lab with my ear against it, listening real carefully to everything they said. It was early—the lab was quiet. I think Bulma told people not go in there anytime my daddy was in there—I bet they didn't like seeing him get beat up.

But I didn't have to have my ear on the door to hear it, when everything went quiet and then my daddy suddenly screamed.

I couldn't even think. I broke down the door and I saw my daddy on the ground outside through the wall, and I saw Raditz laughing, and my energy exploded out of my stomach and into my hands, flowing out like lightning, kind of like the bright energy ball my daddy made when I saw him fighting Raditz the first time.

I don't remember what I said and I don't remember what he said, only that then Bulma was there and I couldn't move, and she threw a knife and my feet let me do one thing—jump over Raditz and knock him out with a move my daddy taught me.

Everything after that is dizzy.

I remember it, but I don't wanna. So I don't think on it too much.

I flip over onto my belly and hope I can sleep better that way. It's almost the morning, but I haven't slept all night. The stars were too bright and my legs hurt too much and my chest hurts too much and Piccolo makes grunting noises when I move around too much. Once I did almost fall asleep, but it turned real bad, with scary things under my eyelids, the things I don't wanna remember. It didn't last too long—Piccolo kicked me and I woke back up. I think he knew that I was having a bad dream and that's why he woke me up. I thanked him, but he didn't say anything. He saved me from having to look at all of those awful things again, inside my mind where they got burned in.

I haven't been home to tell Mommy yet. I wonder if somebody has. I wonder if Bulma did. I wonder if she killed Raditz like Piccolo said to. I'm afraid to stretch my mind out over there and try to feel for his energy. I'm afraid it'll still be there. I think if I feel it again my stomach will spill out.

"Gohan," Piccolo hisses out. "Rest your mind. Reign it in and your body will calm as well."

"I can't," I say. It's true. My blood is whipping around and it's strange, and it's hot like it might boil out of my skin, and I keep looking at the sky like I'm gonna find something there that will help. The stars all sparkle like they're making fun of me and I wonder if the guys Raditz says are coming are at one of those stars right now, and if they killed other boys' daddies, and if anybody killed their daddies so they know how bad it feels.

"Why not?" he sort of asks, but it's not that much like a question, more like he's making me answer.

"Because I'm really, really mad," I say.

"It will get you nowhere," he tells me. But that doesn't make much sense, because he gets mad all the time. He always yelled a lot. It's only just now that he's really, really quiet. Then he says again, like I didn't hear it the other times before, "What you did was stupid. You are lucky not to have died."

My everything hurts too much and I know I won't sleep, so I stand up to wander around, maybe go find a big rock to put all my anger into so I don't have to keep it in me like this, eating me and keeping me awake.

But Piccolo grabs the collar of my shirt before I go, and shoves me to the ground beside him. "Sit as I sit," he says, and with the way he says it I know he means for it to be part of my training. So I rearrange my legs to try to make them look like his. I can feel him looking at me even when my eyes are closed, and I can't help moving around just a little bit while I think of that.

But I don't really get a chance to calm down.

"Morning," a new voice says in kind of a serious way, and it sounds a bit familiar. I've met this guy before, on that island, with Bulma and everybody else before Raditz took me away. Compared to Daddy's other friends, he's not that much taller than me.

Behind him there's that Yamcha guy from before, and a much taller man with three eyes and a smaller one floating in the air beside him. A little cat is on Yamcha's back and it's shivering with its eyes on Piccolo.

"Bulma told me that Goku died," Yamcha says. "And that Kami told you guys to train." Piccolo nods his head a little, and narrows his eyes at the others like he sort of recognizes them. I think Yamcha notices because he adds on, "I found Kuririn and Tenshinhan and Chaotzu and told them what happened. We're all going to train with you." He sounds really serious about it.

Piccolo looks at all of them like I looked at broccoli on my dinner plate, back when I ate at home, back two days ago, back before Raditz killed Daddy.

"I can't believe his nerve," Yamcha almost spits, and I know he's talking about Raditz. "That bastard."

The ridges on top of Piccolo's eyes arch upward. "Did your female friend not dispose of him?" he asks.

Yamcha shakes his head and I feel sick. "She hasn't told me much," he says, and he sounds really angry about it. "But she did something..." he trails off and glances at me, like there's something he doesn't want me to hear. Piccolo narrows his eyes and Yamcha keeps talking. "She told me she cut off his tail and used this chemical that kind of seared the nerves off, or something, so that it can't grow back." He takes a few deep breaths like he's trying to hold in a lot of anger. "She thinks he won't do anything knowing that she's the only who can fix him up with a tail again," and his fists ball up, "she doesn't even know if she can actually do it, and I'll be damned if that bastard doesn't find _that _out eventually and kill her over it."

"Idiot," Piccolo mutters. "That woman knows not what she's doing."

"She was rambling about—about Saiyan physiology," Yamcha keeps going, "like she can find something out about them that'll let us beat the others. I hope so," his fists get even tighter, "but I'm not taking any chances. I don't want that brute to get his paws on Bulma and hurt her." Yamcha's nostrils get wider as he takes some more breaths. "I'll get strong enough to beat him myself the second she's done studying him." Then he kind of looks like he remembers that he's scared of Piccolo, or something, and shuts his mouth and his cheeks get kind of red. I guess maybe if Piccolo started looking real mean all these guys would run away. It seems most everybody is afraid of him (besides the three-eyed guy, who hasn't moved a single muscle since he got here).

My daddy's friend Kuririn has been leaning back and forth from one foot to the other the whole time, and finally after Yamcha finishes talking he asks really quietly, "What—what was it—I mean—did Goku—" he can't even finish talking, I think because he's afraid of Piccolo too.

"Raditz blasted a hole through Son Goku's chest," Piccolo said, and I grab at my stomach while it flips around. It's scarier to hear it out loud. "A fate I would have rather subjected him to my—" he stops and looks at me, and doesn't finish what he's saying. I'm too dizzy to make sense of it, of why he stopped, trying to push out all the things in my head that I tried not to look at and tried to remember but keep bubbling up under my eyes. I can't keep my guts inside me and everybody looks away when I spit up the tiny bit of food I had to eat last night while I couldn't sleep, and a bunch of other stuff I didn't know I had inside me. I run away so that they don't have to look, and when I'm pretty far off, I hear them go back to talking. I can't keep my mind from stretching out and finding where Raditz's energy ripples out from, and it makes me feel even sicker.

"Gohan," I hear Piccolo shout. I walk back to him slowly, because all this being sick made me so shaky.

"Maybe he should tell Chi-Chi what happened," Kuririn suggests, and I feel almost like being sick again just thinking about saying any of what happened, or any of what I saw, out loud.

"No," Piccolo says real sharply. "One of you will do it."

They all start shivering a little bit, even the three-eyed one. "Maybe _you_ should," Kuririn says, the whole time laughing in a nervous way.

"I could kill you," Piccolo says very very quietly, and Kuririn stops laughing. "If you are too weak of will to perform such a simple task, there is no point in tolerating your presence. If any of you plan to act as children," this time he even looks at me, "then you will be removed from this area by whatever force necessary." He keeps going, "I will allow you to stay otherwise, for what limited experience you will provide in training. But remember you this: When my safety has been secured by defeating the Saiyans, and when you wish Son Goku back, I _will_ kill him."

I don't think it's true. I don't think he will. I don't think Piccolo is as bad as Raditz.

I really, really hope not.

I don't wanna think about it.

The others move around nervously and whisper; I dunno if they don't know that Piccolo can hear mostly everything. I can hear the three-eyed guy say something about needing to get stronger anyway to defeat Piccolo later. I don't understand all this, all these friends my daddy has, why they don't like Piccolo at all...

"Fine," Kuririn finally says. "I'll tell her, but don't be surprised if she shows up here." He narrows his eyes and his normal kind of twitchy movements are gone for a second. "I don't like you, Piccolo, but right now what's important is making sure we can help Goku when he comes back. And Yamcha is right—we have to get strong enough to keep Raditz from doing anything else."

It makes me feel better to think of all these guys helping out, like if they would have been there instead of me when Daddy died, they could have done something about it—like if Raditz tries to do anything again, they will. And it's nice to be around more people who love my daddy like I do. Yamcha comes up to me and puts his hand in my hair and it makes me feel a little better. "We'll make sure to give these Saiyans what they deserve," he says, "and that you never have to see such an awful sight again."

I smile a little bit, and get a nice warm feeling from his hand being on my head. I feel like I could just... I yawn and I can't keep my eyes open. Nobody stops me when I lay down right there, in the nice, soft grass, and close my eyes for just a bit...


	11. I, 11: Raditz

NOTE: For whatever reason, this chapter was a bit of a struggle for me. I wrote the last two pages, and then realized that I had to delete them and completely redo that part, and that's the first time such a thing has happened to me in a while. Hope what I've done is all right. XD In any case, it's better than what it was. Probably good for me to have to suck it up and toss something out every now and again.

I continue to appreciate every one of your reviews, guys. Thanks! Hope you enjoy this chapter! The next chapter should contain some more interesting stuff, if it goes as planned...

...

I don't know if she knocked me out or if I blacked out from the pain, but when I woke up my head was pounding.

Nobody removes a Saiyan's tail and gets away with it—nobody makes me look like I could pass for one of those humans. Nobody humiliates me like that so soon after such a glorious victory.

Nobody except that goddamned woman.

There are no more walls around me, but I'm more caged-in than I ever was before. Whenever I see her, she looks down her snobby little nose at me, somehow, like I'm trash beneath her stupidly inefficient footwear. She doesn't speak, and that's for the better. I doubt I'd be able to stand her voice.

On one side of her lab I can see that she's preserved my tail. If the equipment scattered around it is any indication, she's studying it—studying me. I don't much like looking at it; gives me the chills—what would you do if you saw your hand in a jar? Often I feel the ghost of my tail following me, wrapped around me, making me midjudge my movements and making me clumsy. I wonder how Bulma would walk with only one leg. Imagining it makes my lips curl up a little.

I'm heading out of the lab—they don't like me showing up there. No, now I have a quaint little bedroom near the humans' living quarters. That woman's trust is moronically huge, that I won't just decide I don't give a shit about my tail and go ballistic on everyone she knows and loves.

But, dammit, I want my tail back. I can't look at my back in the mirror anymore without retching. I wonder how Kakarrot lived with himself—but that's not important now, now that he's gone. I am surprised by how quickly Bulma seemed to move past it, at least from what I've noticed so far. Guess she didn't like him quite so much as she made it sound like—but who can blame her? At least that traitorous fool is gone from my sight. The question now is whether I will take his son, or whether the boy is completely unbearable as well (which is the impression I have gotten—but whelps are easier to push around so there may be hope for him yet). I need to get my scouter back, at the very least, or, ideally, my pod, so that I can see if it can't be repaired. Doubtless Nappa and Vegeta will arrive eventually, but without a means of contacting 'em I dunno how far away they are.

Then these Earthlings will get what they deserve. Well, once I have my tail. I hum a little at the thought of every one of their cities burning to the ground, those screams and the crackling of bodies popping under the heat. The image makes my mouth water so I head up the stairs to the kitchen, which I have been in a few times so far. These humans eat so little, but, hell, what do I care? I start cleaning out the cabinets and eating everything I can find; they can get their own food if I eat all this up. This food that didn't come from something that would have run away will have to do for now; else if I go and off one of her friends, Bulma will find some other way to fuck with me. Next thing she'll find some way to permanently remove my hair and I'll look like that ugly sonnuvabitch Nappa. Maybe I can go out into the wooded area not far away and at least hunt _something_. Being this stationary ain't healthy.

Killing Kakarrot felt great, after all those weeks of being bothered by him. I'm disappointed my little brother became what he did. It's only a shame I didn't get to enjoy his suffering a bit more. But, well—guy at least got a taste of what he deserved.

...

I wake up in the middle of the night and it ain't because I'm not tired anymore.

"Listen, you sadistic bastard," she hisses, her mouth way too close to my ear. "You fucked up with what you did to Son. You'd better thank your Saiyan gods—if you've even got any willing to admit to such a station—that the dragonballs exist or I would have cut off more than your tail."

Her voice forces me to think again of that unbearable pain, and it paralyzes me. "Get the hell away from me," is all I can say, and manage to roll onto my back so she can't step on the spot where my tail once was.

"Don't you want to know what the dragonballs are?" she asks, and I can see her teeth pulled back—she's bothered that I don't give a damn about anything concerning Kakarrot.

"No," I say. "Get the fuck out of here."

"The dragonballs are seven magical spheres," oh great, and now she's just spewing out bullshit to see how long it takes me to get angry and hit her, "and when you gather them together, you can summon the Dragon, and he'll grant you any wish."

"Bullshit," I manage. I hardly want to acknowledge her, but her face is still so close to mine that she could spit in my eye.

"When I found out about them I wanted to gather them and wish for a boyfriend," she muses, calmer than before, like the sound of her own voice makes her feel better. "Well, that didn't happen." By now I've closed my eyes again and I'm pretending to sleep. For a few moments, I don't hear her, but then I can feel her leaning closer to me. "Wake up!" she nearly screams straight into my ear.

"God_dammit_, stupid bitch!" I shout.

She seems to take this as evidence that I'm still listening. As if I had a choice. "Anyway," she grins a little, "you and me are gonna play nice, all right?"

Shit. Like she needs to say it again. "Yeah, yeah, my tail," I mutter.

"Not only that," if it's possible, she leans in closer. I can't help the fact that her tits are right in my line of sight. The woman is far too skinny, like a fragile little stick—nowhere near enough muscle—but I can't shake the feeling that there's hope for her yet. Not that that it'll matter, anyway, once she's burning with the others. I raise an eyebrow and try to look somewhere else. "We're using the dragonballs to revive Son—not now, in a while." Shit—wait—what? Maybe I should've been listening. She keeps blabbering, anyway, her grin getting wider. "He's getting some kind of crazy training in the afterlife, so if he finds out you did anything to any of us, when he gets back, he's gonna beat the snot out of you."

"And who will be gathering this dragon's balls?" I ask, and she snorts a little, maybe out of disgust at the thought of picking up a giant animal's testicles. But then, maybe she's into that sort of thing. The people here are fucked up.

"_Dragonballs_—and me, of course." Well, damn. There goes my idea of sneaking off to kill whoever was gonna do it, if it was somebody she wouldn't miss. I notice a lot of humans take orders from her, and wonder again if she might be like this world's Freeza.

"You bring him back—if it's true that you can—that's your choice; I'll just kill him again," I say. I doubt these things exist, but at this moment I'm not about to put anything past her—telling ridiculous stories that are true _or _out and out lying just to screw me over. Then again, guess I always heard bizarre things about Namekians and there _is _one of 'em here...

"Doubt it," she rolls her eyes, leaning back a little. I feel a bit uneasy under the way she looks over me, like one of those doctors in Freeza's ships who don't understand a lick of what they're doing but are damn sure they can figure it out if they press all the right buttons. Her eyes stop on my midsection and without the slightest bit of warning, her hands are on my side, flipping me over. Her cold human fingers rest against my skin as she narrows her eyes. "Do you still—you know, _feel_, your tail?" she asks. I look away for fear she's yanked out more of whatever chemical she put on it the first time to seal it over, the fucking most painful thing I've ever experienced in my life.

"Yes," I finally say. "Sometimes." I don't tell her that usually when I do feel it, it's only because it hurts like hell, like I wake up and find that I was lying on top of it and it's got a kink in it; like I try to scale a set of stairs and it burns like it's stretching out too far to balance me. She'd probably use shit like that against me, anyway.

She makes a little grunt like I'm an interesting specimen on her table. "You know, I haven't forgiven you," she says in one of the harshest tones I've ever heard from her, and I can feel her breath near the small of my back, "even though Son's coming back. I heard the way he screamed."

"Guy's stupid enough to bother somebody who can kill him," I growl, "he dies." Of course these Earthlings don't get it and likely never will get the chance.

"So I should've killed you, huh?" she asks.

"Guess so," I growl, "but I guess I'm too damned interesting so you study and torture me instead."

She sighs, but doesn't say anything else for a while. "I'm curious," she finally says, like it's an excuse.

"I'm tired," I answer, hoping it'll shut her up. But I feel the bed sag down a little as she plants her ass against it, right near my legs, so I get the feeling she's gonna keep nagging at me for a while and I ain't gonna get any more sleep tonight.

"I'm curious," she says again, and goes on, "Where's your tail?" Now I _have _to turn around to look at her, because she must be joking—but she sure as hell don't sound like it. When I get a glance at her, she don't _look_ like she's kidding, either.

"Pickled, down in your lab," I answer, my hands gripping at the sheets a little. I sit up just in case she's about to try anything funny, facing toward her so I can keep an eye on her.

"No, dumbass," her voice is quiet, in a different way than it was when she started talking to me earlier. Now that my legs aren't in her way she leans back on her hands and her eyes pierce right into mine. "You said you can feel it sometimes, so where is it?"

Games. I don't know what she's playing at, but something about the way her fingers are twitching against the sheets is making me think she might be just about as nervous as I am confused. And like her talking about it summoned it, I can feel my tail behind me, twisting around. I wince as it bends too far.

"Bring it over here," she says, and motions to her side. "On your leg, or something."

"What the hell are you doing?" I have to ask, but the tail goes there anyway.

"Just...trying something," she says. "For science."

Yeah, right.

"Is it there right now?" she points to a vague area of my leg, and I tilt my head a little. "Can you put my hand on it?"

Dammit, this is not a good idea. I grab her hand, and, feeling just about like as big a moron as there ever was, pull it over and leave it where I can feel my tail. When I take my hand away from hers and her hand settles onto it, I shiver a little—fuck, this is weird.

"Can you feel it?" she asks. She moves her hand a little bit and I growl.

"You're rubbing the fur the wrong way," I tell her, when she looks at me with frightened eyes. Rather'n looking at me like I'm crazy, she starts moving her hand the other way instead, real gently.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Hot air pours out of my nostrils at the feeling and a little whimper makes it past my throat. All the godawful stuff that my ghost-tail makes me feel and she has to be the one who discovers the one good thing.

"Is that better?" she asks, and by her voice I'd say she knows it. She leans closer down like she can see the tail if she does, and I can feel her warm breath on both my leg and my tail, and I shudder, because it's fucking _weird,_ but...

Then I see her hand move too far down, and a shout bubbles out of my throat. She recoils, eyes big like a scared animal's, not that I give a damn with the way the sharp pain has become a pounding ache in my ghost-tail.

"You squeezed it," I tell her, and, shoot, my breathing sounds heavy when I say it. Hurt more'n I thought it did.

"Sorry," she says, and I just keep breathing. Now that I look, my chest is rising and falling visibly with each breath, and I close my eyes to try to convince my tail that nothing happened to it, 'cause it ain't there. All the planets I wiped out and at this one I lose my tail for good—well—I hope not really for good. I wonder if something happened to Kakarrot that kept him from growing his tail back or if he was just in-between growings; if his ghost-tail wailed like it was gonna try to yank itself off 'cause of all the pain. I guess I ain't never known a Saiyan to go very long without a tail, but, damn, all this must have come from whatever it was that she did to where my tail grows out my back, right? That searing, awful pain of the only damn thing I ever had being stripped off of me.

Since the quiet set in, my chest is pounding even harder. I feel cold human fingers on my face and my eyes snap open. "What the hell are you doing?" I hiss, mostly hoping she ain't gonna lean on the tail or something.

"Er," she looks away, and in the dark I can still see that her face is a bit red, "well, you had some tears down your cheeks, so..."

Shit. Well, maybe I can still save some face. "You fuck with my tail like that, you think it's not gonna hurt?" I snap.

"Sure," she whispers.

"Did you just come here to brag about the dragon's balls?" I keep on it, because I think if I bother her enough she'll just up and leave, in this state, feeling bad as she seems to. "I'd rather you threaten me when I'm already awake," I add. "This shit isn't worth my sleep."

Her teeth show a little, and she's grinning for whatever reason. Then she gets a little more somber-like, leaning in close like I won't be able to hear her otherwise. "Yamcha gets his feathers all ruffled when I talk to you," she says, "thinks you're gonna beat me up and kill me or something. So I came to talk to you when I knew he wouldn't show up."

"Now that you say that, maybe I will kill you," I tell her, not that she'd believe it even if was gonna.

Her grin comes back. "Uh-huh," she says, "sure. Anyway," her eyes move away from mine and around the rest of the room, like she's thinking hard but don't wanna seem like it, "I've got a little bit of a, uh—of a proposition for you."

I do not like one bit how all my hairs stand up at that word, nor the images that flash into my head. I do not like how my neck cranes forward, nor the way my ghost-tail twitches. My hand clenches into a fist. It's some sort of goddamned full-body rebellion, I swear.

"A business proposition," she corrects, and she likely hears me swearing at myself for how obvious it probably was to her what my body was thinking.

"Let's hear it," I finally say.

"Well, I need your help translating the manual that came with your pod," she says, sighing. "I thought I could figure it out, but it looks like I actually need to know what the words say." I grin at her. Heh—she's illiterate. Well—I'm sure she's literate in whatever stupid little language they write here on Earth, but that don't mean a thing. "Maybe you could, er—teach me how to read it," now she's getting a bit red, and it's real clear she ain't used to asking for help with something like reading, "for future reference."

"I hate reading," I tell her, "And the thought of trying to teach you anything sounds unbearable. What's in it for me?"

Her grin grows to a dimension I thought only manageable by Saiyans. "I've been thinking on it," she says, visibly bouncing. Visibly. Bouncing. Oh god, now it's my eyes, too, joining the rebellion. "And I can't deny that I'm a little bit interested in the 'healing tank' you mentioned earlier." She must see me straighten up a little. "You know, if you can describe it to me well enough, maybe I can reverse engineer one." Yes, that is definitely a Saiyan grin she's wearing. "I've never run up against a set of mental gymnastics I couldn't navigate. It'll be fun, right?"

"And what about my tail?" I ask, trying to ignore the fact that various parts of me have particular ideas of what gymnastics entail. Dammit, she's not even that hot, that look on her face aside. "When do I get that back?"

She bites her lip. "When I can trust you, I guess," she says. "Not to turn around and blow me up the second you get it back. And to tell your friends not to kill us."

"Well, that'll be damn near impossible," I say. Even if I could resist destroying her and everything else on this planet, I doubt Vegeta and Nappa would, and I ain't about to butt heads with one of _them_.

"Look, it's going to take me a little while to build the equipment I need to do the research I need to make sure I can get your tail back safely and without incident," she says, suddenly not snapping around with the usual threat in her voice that she might make a fool of me every other word she says, "not to mention the equipment involved in actually ensuring your tail grows back. Depending on when they get here, your talking them out of it might be crucial to me having the time to get things ready for you."

This is not sounding good. I am almost starting to regret killing Kakarrot, between this and the whole "magical dragon" bit. Almost. Way too much trouble.

She takes a few breaths and moves closer to me. "I'm gonna be honest," she finally says, "I don't know yet exactly how I'm going to do it. It was a bit of an on-the-spot—"

She don't finish because by now I'm on top of her and snarling. "You _don't know_?" I ask.

"Raditz," she mutters, "I'm gonna do it, trust me."

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. "And what reason do I have to do that?" I hiss. "You're the rottenest bitch I've ever met. I don't see why I shouldn't just kill you now." I lean down close so she can see my teeth, dig my knees against her sides so she can get an idea of just how powerful I am and just what a weakling she is. She's still got an ounce of fight in her eyes so I grab her wrists and pin them down. It still don't flash from her eyes—gets stronger, if anything. Still, her chest rises and falls quickly with panic, brushing up against mine each time she takes in a breath. The fabric of her shirt is pretty damn thin—

"The dragonballs," she finally says. "If I can't get your tail back the good old-fashioned way, we can always use them, for our next wish after we get Son back."

"What stops me from gathering 'em right now?" I breathe dangerously close to her face.

"Easy," she ain't affected in the least, "you haven't the slightest idea where they are, how to find them, or what they look like." Damn. She wins that one. I'll have to wheedle that stuff out of her over time, I reckon.

"Fine," I say, easing up a little.

"You're welcome, by the way," she sneers.

"Don't see what reason I have to thank you," I snort, keeping my face close and my hands pinning her wrists down for good measure. Sure, she's gonna get my tail back, but she cut it off in the first place. Sure, she's gonna build me a healing tank (dunno what I should think of that—that she figures I'm gonna get beat up something ugly if she does bring Kakarrot back from the dead? maybe I'm afraid to know why she's doing it; or maybe it's just for her precious little friends, who ain't gonna need it anyway once I kill 'em). But in exchange for that I have to _read_ the _pod manual_. How disgustingly dull. "It's a fair trade, at best. I got nothing to thank you for."

"Yeah?" she quirks an eyebrow, squirms around like she's thinking of something, and then cranes her neck up, pulling my lower lip into her mouth and biting it. I jump back and real quick she runs out from beneath me to stand in the doorway, grinning that same grin that ain't natural for a human—"Well, now you do," she says, and bounces out of the room.

I can feel the ghost-tail's hairs stand on end as it whips around all excited-like. Little bumps crop up on my skin as those hairs stand up too. I stick by what I said—it's a goddamned rebellion.


	12. I, 12: Bulma

NOTE: Well, I'm afraid this chapter is a little dull, compared to the last chapter that Bulma narrated, but I hope you like it anyway. ^^ I was going to do something more, but I decided that it would be better to wait for a later chapter.

...

All right, I definitely wasn't planning on _that_ happening.

I mean, not that it matters that much, because it's not like he's going to tell Yamcha, and I'm not going to do anything like that again, but it was just a little disconcerting.

It's not as if this is so different from when he was injured. Then, Raditz couldn't move around much, but it's not as if he couldn't have, I dunno, strangled me or punched me or something. But he probably figured out real quick that I took better care of him than anyone else, and, who knows, maybe even assumed that I'm the only one who knows where his stuff is. (Partially true: Dad knows where the pod is, but I haven't really mentioned the scouter. He's distracted enough as it is.)

And now that he's better, sure, he could beat the living shit out of me (which he didn't seem scared to show at all when I went into his room—I mean, I figured he wasn't gonna do it, but _damn_, it doesn't matter if it makes sense when you've got somebody twice your size who could crush you like a soda can snarling in your face). But will he? No. Because he knows better. I think. I hope. I mean, he's dumb as a brick but he at least seems to have that figured out. I'm glad I haven't told him anything about the dragonballs—he _knows _he can't find them if he hasn't a clue what they look like (besides that they're spheres, of course).

So am I a little too confident for my own good? Yeah. But if I'm safe, what's it matter? Anyway, he totally has a thing for me. That's a nice extra barrier of protection. No one can blame me for encouraging that. The whole ordeal with Son dying was awful—ugly—I'm not going to forget it anytime soon. But now I have something else over him—his tail—and I'm just trying to move on to see if there's any way to help the others get ready for these alleged other, stronger Saiyans that Kami seems to be worried about.

It's almost morning, but, truth be told, I never went to bed. I just wanted to stop by his room while I still had the (sleep-deprivation-induced) guts to do so. I know I'm safe, but there is a distinct unavoidable scariness about a muscle-bound seven-foot-something space-alien, which requires a certain kind of ballsy attitude unique to the genuinely strong, the foolhardy, the drunk, and the sleep-deprived to confront. I figure I'm at least two of those right now, and I don't drink on the job. (Usually.)

Now I'm heading back to the lab, if only for a few moments. I should have thought of this before I left, but I'm glad I remembered—I'd been looking at the scouter earlier today and I don't think I stowed it away. Granted, it's in a safe spot already—a little locked room off to the side where I work on my own personal projects—but it's not like a lock could stop someone like Raditz if he got it in his head that something he wanted was in there.

Then, I am definitely hitting the sack. After everything that happened a few days ago, people mostly have been giving me my space and no one will bother me about the bizarre hours. They don't know exactly what happened, of course, but the fact that a huge segment of the wall was blasted away and the alien I was keeping in the lab no longer had his tail (and the suspicious lack of a certain chemical in our stores) was enough to give them an impression of the type of situation it had been, I guess. I didn't tell them Son died, naturally—not worth the trouble, since he'll be back.

Much to my relief (not that I was too worried, having only been gone a half-hour or so) the door is still secure, and nothing has been touched so far as I can tell. There's the scouter, right there on my desk. I sit down and glance over it a bit more, looking through my notes. I've fixed it up already—that was just a little afternoon project—and after that I set to drawing some diagrams and trying to calibrate it to display something I could read, which was just as easy, and that was ages ago that I finished that. From what I understand, they're used to find something like battle power, and I'm almost positive it's the same thing as what Son does when he says he detects _ki_. From inside my door I tested it on a few people and what I found pretty much supports that hypothesis. Something like this might be useful for someone like me, but I doubt it'll help Son or his friends fight the other Saiyans. I wonder why Son can sense _ki_ and Raditz can't, but I guess it must be about the same reason my mother knows the exact moment to add the sugar when she's making fudge and I don't. Speaking of which, I think I've got about two pieces left... I peek into my little refrigerator. Damn, I guess I ate them already. Surprise, surprise—my notes have chocolate fingerprints all over them. In my unreasonable irritation over the matter (nobody can blame a girl for enjoying some chocolate, right? but the world doesn't have enough, it seems), I yank the desk drawer open to file away the incriminating notes. My desk lurches at the force (it hasn't been the same since Son accidentally leaned on it) and a few of my things tip over or fall off the desk—pens, mostly, I realize with relief, and not my pretty glass paperweight.

Wait.

And the scouter.

It makes some bizarre buzzing noises, and then I hear talking.

"Dammit, Raditz, how lazy can you be? Do you have Kakarrot yet, or not?" A pause. "Is your scouter even operational? God knows—" the voices fizzle out a bit, and I pick the thing up, my hands shaking a little. Shit, in all my excitement about having figured out the whole battle power thing, I'd completely forgotten that it also seemed to have some kind of communication function. I'd been holding back on working that one out—I guess scared of what I'd find, and I wanted to be prepared. Well. See how that turned out.

There are two ways to go about this. One requires a certain kind of ballsy attitude that—blah blah blah blah. Yeah. I'm there.

I put it on and press the little button on the side, and the faint buzzing picks back up. "Hello?" I say.

"Heh, doesn't sound much like Raditz to me," a different voice than the first one says, laughing. "Not that he isn't a little bit of a bitch..."

"Nappa, please," says the first voice. "Who the hell is this?"

Ballsy. Right. This is just like talking on the phone—no real consequences until later, when I wake up later today and remember what I did. Anyway, they already want to slaughter all of humanity. I guess it can't get much worse. "None of your goddamn business," I say. "Now, I heard you say 'Nappa,' so that must mean that you're 'Vegeta.'" I'm pretty sure those are the names Raditz keeps mentioning. God, I hope so.

A short silence follows. "What happened to him?"

"To Raditz?" I ask. "Wouldn't _you _like to know?"

"I'm tired of this game," continues the voice—sounds like a prick if I've ever heard one. "Raditz is nothing. We can do without him."

"Oh yeah?" I grin a little bit—okay, this is fun. This guy seems like just as much of a cocky bastard as Raditz, with an even bigger stick up his ass. Plus, it's less scary since I can't see him. In my head, I can paint him as somebody the opposite of Raditz. Hm. Short and scrawny. Yeah. "Then why were you so desperate for him to hunt down his little brother?"

"Shit," the other voice, Nappa, says. "She knows! How's she know?"

"Did you kill him?" Vegeta asks.

I pause and think up the best way to answer. "I'm in the process—limb by limb," I finally say.

"Oh," Nappa says, "she sounds fiesty."

"Earthling," Vegeta snaps, "you will be dead soon enough, so why don't you make your death—and I _will _find you and kill you _personally_—a little less painful and answer a bit more directly?"

"Yeah? How soon?" See, this might turn out to be useful after all.

"Nice try," he hisses.

Well, it was worth a shot. "Anyway," I go on, "just how do you plan on finding me and killing me personally?" Sounds about like how feasible Raditz's plan to find the dragonballs on his own was. He doesn't seem to have an answer, I find, after a few seconds of silence, and I grin a little, and figure I'd better move on. Maybe I can get some other information from them. "Word is," I say, "both of you are stronger than Raditz."

"Stronger is an understatement," Vegeta says, and he and Nappa are clearly both laughing. "Raditz is just an errand-boy so far as I'm concerned. Sure, he helps clear planets every now and then," he pauses, "but he's every bit the low-class moron he was born as."

"Yeah," Nappa continues, "we could beat him up faster than you could blink!"

"So if you struggled with him," Vegeta adds, "don't even _think _about fighting back."

"Lose all hope—check. I'll get right on that," I say. And truthfully, even if they're exaggerating, I can see why Kami's worried...I mean, Goku and Piccolo had to gang up on Raditz to beat him, so even if these guys are only a little stronger...well, I just hope Goku will get this miracle training Kami thinks he will. From what little I saw when he was facing Raditz down, Gohan seems really powerful, too...maybe he can help. Well, obviously; that seems to be Piccolo's goal with taking him and training him and all. Gohan seemed to really like the guy—so he can't be treating him too badly.

"Well, Nappa," Vegeta starts talking again, "it seems the people of that backwater planet have advanced as far as learning _sarcasm_."

"But—" I can hear Nappa start talking, but he stops quickly. This Vegeta seems like a royal ass, so I'm just going to assume he punched the guy. I mean, not that Raditz isn't a total jerk, but, you know, there are different kinds of jerks. Raditz is the type it's fun to jostle around. This Vegeta guy? Not worth my time. (Well, especially because, in theory, he'll be dead shortly after arriving on Earth. Raditz, on the other hand...)

"Guess I'll just go do all those things I wanted to do before I die," I make a yawning sound. "Maybe peel another one of Raditz's limbs off while I think about which to do first."

"I cannot wait to slaughter you Earthlings," Vegeta sneers. "I can't believe Kakarrot hasn't killed you already."

"Well," I say, my feet tapping with excitement as I realize how little these guys know. "Kakarrot's not really Kakarrot anymore, and you can trust me when I say that because I know him personally." Before they have time to speak, I keep going, "Anyway, he's dead now. Raditz killed him. Oh yeah, but don't worry, he'll be alive by the time you get here."

And then I cut the little cord that sends power to the communication portion of the device. No more accidentally hitting that button. I can fix it up if for some reason I need to.

So I'm a little freaked out knowing these other two Saiyans are for real, but at least now I have a bit of an idea of what to expect, and I can pass the word on to Yamcha next time he stops by.

Heh, I guess I can also try to find out more about the other Saiyans when I sit Raditz down to get him read his manual to me. I think I could manage to snuggle up to him a bit—metaphorically, I mean—get under his skin, y'know—and see if there aren't a few more things I could learn about—like if he stands a chance of talking them out of killing us, should Son and the others fail.

I wonder if Raditz knows what his "buddies" think of him.

Heh—and they think he'll be dead by the time they get here. Not if I can help it—I will keep that guy trapped here for as long as I can. I don't have it in me to kill him, so in the meantime, I may as well use him for what I can, and maybe I can talk him into not ganging up on us with the other Saiyans. Of course, if what Vegeta said is true, if Raditz joining them in the fight makes a difference, we're fucked anyway.

I fold the scouter up in a piece of cloth and slip it into one of my drawers, out of sight, before locking up the door and dragging my feet upstairs. I wave hello to my mother, who is standing at the window making conversation with the rising sun, meander down the hallway, and collapse into bed. If my life stays this eventful, I'm never going to get my beauty sleep.


	13. I, 13: Gohan

NOTE: Ugh—I hope this is okay. I've been in a bit of a funk these past few days, experiencing the strange feeling of being obsessed with something other than DBZ. (I got the game Dragon Age: Origins for Christmas. I've played "only" 30 hours so far and am hooked. As anyone who's played it might guess, I'm experiencing a high-grade Alistair Fever. XD)

So, I hope everyone seems in character and everything. This came out being a lot shorter than I thought it might...I just wasn't feeling it; seeing these two characters butt heads was not as interesting to me as I thought it was going to be. Maybe it will be more interesting later, if they get the chance. I feel like I'm not doing Chi-Chi justice, here...maybe if we can see some of it from Raditz's perspective it'll help. Hm.

For those who may be worried: The _real _plot hasn't even started yet. Oh-ho-ho...just you wait.

In any case, I'm sure I'll get my groove back when I start writing the next chapter. Raditz tends to have that effect.

...

This is not good.

Well, what happened is, Kuririn and Yamcha and Tenshinhan and Chaotzu went to tell Mommy about what happened to Daddy. Me and Piccolo sparred while we waited for them to come back. He says I'm getting pretty strong, for a little kid, but also he always talks about how I don't know how to control my power yet, which I guess is probably right 'cause I haven't been practicing for very long. But, at least I'm good at sneaking up on people.

Oh, but, anyway, um, so what happened after that was, they came back.

With Mommy.

She was yelling and screaming and crying and then she came up to me and started hugging me. Then she said she was gonna go have "words" with Raditz. Which is where we are now—at Bulma's house, 'cause that's where Raditz is. I dunno why she brought me, but maybe she's scared that Raditz is gonna hurt her and she thinks maybe I'm scary enough to him to keep him from doing anything bad, I dunno. I hope I don't have to do anything again...it was so scary before. I almost died. But Bulma won't let it happen, right? It just seems like a really bad idea.

Bulma opens the door to her house looking super tired. "Hey, Chi-Chi, Gohan," she kind of mumbles. "Need so—" she doesn't even get to finish talking before my mommy does.

"Bulma, I need to talk to that sonnuvabitch that almost killed my son this instant!" she says.

"He also actually _did _kill Son," Bulma says, and it looks like she didn't get very much sleep.

"Yeah, well, he's coming back anyway," my mommy is practically about to push Bulma through the door so she can get in, "but _Gohan_ is alive and I don't want him to be in any danger, so I need to show this guy what'll happen to him if he lays a _finger _on my son ever again!"

"Yeah," Bulma kind of nods. "Uhh...he's...uhhh..." she sounds sort of confused but it's probably because she's so tired, and she wanders into the house and points down a hallway. "Third door on the right," she says. "Just don't be too noisy. I'm going to bed."

I wonder if Bulma knows my mommy very well. I mean...she's almost _always _noisy when she's _this _mad, and I would be worried if she wasn't because the next level of scariness after being noisy is her being really, _really _quiet.

"To bed?" Mommy says. "It's eight in the morning!"

"I actually went to bed at..." Bulma trails off. "Not very long ago," she finally says, and she's almost stumbling down the hallway while she walks. "So I...need more sleep...just don't...piss him off too much," I can hear her say. "I arready did that once today..." I can't really see her when she says it but she almost sounds happy about it. Bulma sure does a lot of crazy stuff when you think about how strong this guy is and how she's not a fighter and stuff. I mean, I'm not really either, but I've kinda got some powers, you know? And I'm learning so I can do a little bit. But I don't think she has any. She's just a lady, except maybe she has the same weird way of scaring people that my mommy has. Anyway, my mommy storms off into the room that Bulma said Raditz is in. I follow real close behind her.

"You!" she screams into the door when she swings it open. Raditz is lying in his bed and he turns around to face the other way, away from the door. "You..._child-hurting murderer!_"

"Mm," Raditz says, and he sounds kind of happy, "go on."

Then Mommy runs over to his bed, pulls a pretty framed painting off the wall, and slams it on the back of Raditz's head. I'm about to run toward her and pull her away from him before he hurts her, but he just lifts his head out of the covers to look at her. "Are you the brat's mother?" he asks.

"How'd you know?" she seems a little bit surprised, and not mad for a second.

"You reek of the same human stench as he does," he says. "Luckily for the boy, he takes after his uncle's looks." His eyes go over to me and he smirks a little bit. I wonder why he's not being so mean like before. I wonder if it has to do with how Bulma cut off his tail. Yamcha said something about that but I didn't really get it all the way.

"Look, you," Mommy is mad again, "don't you dare touch my son again!"

"Hm," is all he says. Uh-oh—if he isn't saying okay and that he won't hurt me, does that mean he's gonna go after me? But Piccolo will keep me safe, and the others. I bet they could beat Raditz pretty easy if they all fought him. But, for some reason Bulma didn't kill him before, so maybe they would just beat him up a little bit and bring him back here. I feel a little bit safer thinking about that, especially 'cause I'm getting stronger every day and Piccolo keeps showing me how I should be sure of myself. He says, being smart is just as important as being strong, and, I think I'm pretty smart 'cause Mommy made me read all those books and stuff. I kind of want to go to the library and see if there are some books about fighting. Piccolo says I don't need them but I think it would make me feel better and it seems like the better I feel about sparring and stuff, the better I do.

"Hey!" she reaches under the covers and grabs for where Raditz's collar would be, except, he's not wearing a shirt, I guess 'cause he's been sleeping. So her hand lands on him, and he makes this really scary hissing-growling noise and I wince a little bit and when my eyes open back up she's flying across the room. I'm quick enough to catch her, though, so she doesn't get hurt.

Raditz looks over at us. "If you don't have anything useful to say, get out," he tells my mommy. "But while you're here, I'd like to tell you that I took great joy in killing your mate—and it's only a shame that I can't do the same to you."

"You can't?" I ask before I can even think about it. "Why—" but Raditz is all growly again so I stop, and it's probably better that way anyway 'cause maybe I don't wanna know why he can't, maybe it's something really bad or scary or maybe even something else. Piccolo acted like he knew, but he seemed confused too, so maybe not. Mommy has fainted and I can't really blame her 'cause Raditz is really scary when he's mad.

"Kid," he says, "if you come by here again, I can't hurt you—for now." He grins a little. "Maybe one of these days I can have a real conversation with my dear nephew, huh?" But then his face gets serious again. "But for god's sake, don't bring that woman with you."

"Is she that much meaner than Bulma?" I ask. 'Cause, I mean, I've seen Bulma be pretty mean too, so is that really why Raditz doesn't wanna see my mommy? Heck, Bulma even tried to kill Raditz with that big knife! All my mommy did was hit him with a painting...it probably didn't even hurt him.

Raditz's eyebrows get a little wrinkly, like he's thinking real hard or like he has something he's thinking of saying but trying to say it a different way to make it sound like something it's not. (Daddy said things to Mommy that way sometimes, to make it sound like me and him weren't just exploring for fun in the forest all day. He told her we were looking for mushrooms and stuff. We sort of did, but not really. You know, normally my daddy doesn't seem very smart at all, but he's pretty good at getting out of doing things, you know? It's like even when somebody knows he's not quite saying the whole truth they let him think he is anyway, 'cause, I dunno why. I wonder if Raditz is like that too, maybe, since he's my daddy's brother and all.)

"She is more tolerable," is all Raditz says, but that doesn't really answer my question, but I guess that's okay because I probably shouldn't have asked it anyway. He looks me over a little bit. "You know, you could be a great Saiyan warrior, kid, even if you're only a half-blood."

"I'm not a Saiyan," I tell him. "I'm not mean like you guys."

"Of course," he grins in a kind of scary way, "it doesn't count as being mean when you nearly kill somebody, does it, if that somebody is _bad_ and _evil_, hm? There are two different kinds of killing—isn't that what you're trying to tell me? The type where the _mean _ones kill the _good _people and the type where the _good _ones kill the _mean_ people. Is that right?"

I don't know what to say. I...I guess...I dunno. I...well...I mean...if they're _mean_...then it's different, right? I look at him for a little while to see if he's joking, but he just keeps that same old grin on his face for a while and then it gets all...blank. I mean, all not-happy-not-said like he's just watching me to see what I do. I dunno what to do, so I pick Mommy up and run out of the room real quick, and out the front door, and put her in the car, and try to wake her up.

"Gohan?" she finally says.

I say, "You fainted when he threw you, and told you about Daddy."

She gets a mean look on her face and I say, "It's okay, he promised he's not gonna hurt me. I think," I dunno if it's true, but I think it'll make Mommy happier and if she's happier I can go back to training with Piccolo and Yamcha and Kuririn and Tenshinhan and Chaotzu, "that Bulma came up with some way to keep him from hurting people."

She smiles a little. "That woman always was a genius. But," her fists ball up, "he'd damn well better keep his dirty paws off of you. You watch out, Gohan. I got a bad feeling about him." She sighs and looks at me real seriously, and I nod.

"Mommy," I say, "after we go home I'm going to go back to train, okay? Kami said that there's some scary stuff coming and I don't want Daddy to die again and..." I stop, 'cause I don't think Mommy really likes Piccolo, but, she looks at me like she wants me to keep talking, "and also he's worried he's gonna die, and if he dies, Mister Piccolo dies."

She frowns. "Good riddance, I'd say."

"But I'm gonna train no matter what, okay? So, um...so...don't worry about me. Those guys are really nice and they make sure I'm not hungry or anything, okay?" _I_ actually make sure I'm not hungry, but I guess it might make her feel better thinking that somebody else does, because I think she thinks that I don't know how to do that stuff. "Plus, I'm gonna go get some books to study from while I'm resting between sparring and training and stuff."

"Good," she says, and she hugs me tight because I think she knows that I'm gonna leave no matter what. I think she's thought that ever since I told her earlier about how before I ran away during the nights to train with everybody. "Study hard," she says. "And whatever it is that Kami is so worried about, when it gets here, make sure you stay out of the way." She sounds extra-serious about this last part, in that way that only she ever talks to me.

I nod, 'cause it's easier that way, even if don't know if it's gonna happen. None of us knows what's gonna happen... "Okay," I tell her.

"And visit me," her eyes get full of tears, "and...oh, Gohan, I can't believe you're so young and you're going out in the _wilderness _with _Piccolo_ and _fighting_ and," she sniffs, "you're just like your father, but..." she holds me really tight, "you just keep studying, and make me proud, okay? When this is all over, we'll..." she smiles a little, "we'll see about getting you in a proper school so you can have friends. _Real _friends that aren't your father's fighting buddies."

"Okay," I say again. Maybe some other time I'll tell her how I don't really wanna go to school with other people. I'm so different from the kids I see sometimes, like now, like when I go into the city—my hair is all over the place and I have a tail and if I keep on getting stronger what if I accidentally break something and...and...I've never been around that many people all at once, and...it's...scary. It's okay outside with Piccolo and everybody because that's not _that _many people and I kinda feel at home outside, you know? But in the city, everything is...weird. Loud, and...too bright.

"Let's go home," she finally says, letting me go and wiping all the streaks off of her face, "and get you a nice lunch," her voice kind of shakes, "and don't you forget to visit your mother every now and then, hm?" She breathes in and out a few times. "I don't want to see you out with those...hooligans...but...I know you'll just run away," her breathing is strange again, like the air keeps getting caught in her throat, "and you're faster than me, now, Gohan...you'll just keep...outrunning me..."

"I'll visit," I say. "I promise."

And she smiles and puts her hand in my hair and then we're on the way back home.


	14. I, 14: Raditz

NOTE: The inconvenient thing about Bulma and Raditz deciding they wanna hijack the story _now _instead of _later _like I was thinking is that I can't skip huge gaps of time. XD Well, I'm going to attempt it soon enough, I guess, but maybe in smaller steps. Wanted to get a little more development in first.

Also, sorry if I've neglected to respond to your review! I've been getting ready for classes to start back up and I sort of forgot who I've responded to and who I haven't. I promise that henceforth I will attempt to remember to respond to everyone straight away so I don't have to worry about that problem. XD

...

Well, I think I at least got to that brat an ounce more than I did to his father. If the whelp ends up just the slightest bit on my side, at least it might keep one of his buddies from pulling the same kind of sneak attack on me that I did on Kakarrot.

Then again, I get the feeling none of 'em wants to mess with Bulma, for whatever reason.

Heh—for whatever reason. Damn question's been bugging me since I first got dragged to this place from the battlefield. She sure don't seem to have any powers—can't even throw a knife straight, for god's sake—but nobody wants to seem to mess with her, and they don't got the same excuse I do. (Or maybe they do—maybe they all need something from her and they know she's a vengeful bitch so they don't wanna piss her off.)

Kakarrot's whelp's mother seemed the same way—seemed, far as I can tell, like a Bulma who traded in some of her smarts or whatever the hell it takes for her to make the kind of stuff I see her building (not the most impressive, but for a planet like this? not bad, and it ain't as if I could do any better), and switched 'em out to be stronger. Given what seems to be the selection on this planet, guess I gotta at least give Kakarrot credit where it's due for seeming to find the most Saiyan-like woman I've seen yet—whether he knows he did it or not.

Then again, Bulma's got that damn cocky smirk that nearly makes up for the other things like her scrawny little arms and (do I have to say it?) the _blue hair_.

Not that it matters one bit, 'cause unlike Kakarrot, I ain't dumb enough to stick around here. Far better things there are in the universe than Earthlings.

Speak of the devil—here comes that woman now. I figured as much—with her rambling about that Yamcha kid that follows her around, she don't wanna talk to me except when he's sure not to be here—namely, at night. Fine by me. It's not as if I've got anything else to do, and even if I have to _read _at least she's gonna do something useful for _me _for once.

"Come with me," is all she says as she walks by. "To the lab."

Heh—perfect. I bet she's taking me to wherever the pod is, which'll make stealing it back all that much easier, given that I'll know just where to find it. Then all I'll have to figure out is where she hid the damned scouter. I wonder if Vegeta and Nappa have been trying to contact me—well, they won't have much luck, given the thing was fairly well fried by the time Bulma got hold of it.

I get up, gobbling down the rest of the box of crispy things I was eating as I do so, and walk behind her. She doesn't even look back—just assumes I'm following. Fine by me; that way she don't know what I'm looking at.

Sure enough, we end up walking through these secret doors with lots of buttons to press at the lab. Well, shit, those codes aren't keeping _me _out. They don't seem to account for someone who can just stomp the door in. When we finally get to the room with the pod, I see she's got it strewn all over the place. "No wonder you need my help," I say, "seems you're going_ backwards _in the fixing it up process."

She laughs. "You think fixing it is my primary goal? You think I'd just patch it up without learning about it first? This could be a major step toward space travel!" Then she gets a bit red, I gather because she remembers that "space travel" to me sounds about the same as "foot travel" does to her kind. Heh. But she keeps going, "Anyway, I don't understand what all this machinery is for, but I'm sure once I do I can figure out how it works, so I was hoping you could tell me about it or read to me about it," she waves the manual in my face.

"And the tank?" I say. Shit, if I can get that brat or somebody to rough me up on a regular basis and I've got a healing tank, I've got a surefire way to get stronger than Kakarrot, no matter what kind of training he's getting. If he didn't even know about transforming, I'm damn certain he doesn't know how much stronger we get when we recover from near-death.

"You'll have to describe it to me," she says, "and we can work from there." Then she sits down in a chair and points at one nearby, waving the manual at me again. I snatch it from her and look it over. Every now and again I have to repair this pod myself, so I've flipped through the pages of it a fair few times, but she seems to have looked through it a fair few times more. "But first," she says, waving her hand again like I should sit down, "the pod."

...

Three hours later and she's given me a cup of this stuff called coffee. It ain't the worst thing I've ever been subjected to, but that's about all I can say. But there she is gulping down cup after cup of it, so I keep going too, 'cause she keeps refilling mine and handing it back to me. By now we're kneeling down by some of the parts she's scattered around, and I'm pointing out to her this thing or that thing and reading up on it or whatever the hell she tells me to do. She looks over at the seat and presses her hand against it. "What's this made of?" she asks me.

"Hell if I know," I tell her.

"I guess it has to be pretty comfortable if you sit in it for months on end," she decides, and then clambers on into it, curling up. "Damn," she mutters, "maybe I should just start sleeping here."

"If you were stuck in there for very long," I tell her while I stand up to stretch out, "you'd feel a bit more cramped." Her legs are hanging out the half-disassembled side, a towel thrown over it to make sure she don't cut herself on the exposed parts. (Or maybe it just got thrown there, hard to tell with her.)

There is something about seeing her in the pod that makes my stomach curl up in sickening ways, in ways that make my face hot and my head itch. I start scratching at it, figuring maybe if I do that my stomach'll give me a break. "Cute," I say before thinking about it. She grins a little and readjusts herself so that I can see right down her—hmmm.

"Raditz," she says in this quiet voice, and for whatever reason my damn knees try to give out on me when she does, "mightn't it be a good thing that your tail is gone? Isn't that your main weakness?"

I'm too distracted by something or another (by which I mean, everything in the room that's not her tits) to even get mad about her suggesting something like that. It's a thought—except that without it I'm practically one of _them_. "Only if I want to be a traitorous bastard like Kakarrot," I finally say.

"So is it a weakness of all Saiyans?" she asks. Stupid woman—if it were really a weakness, would we keep them?

"No," I tell her, "it's worth it—transforming makes us much more powerful."

"I mean when you're just," she motions to me, "you know, normal. If you tug on any Saiyan's tail, will it hurt him immensely?"

Oh, so now she's trying to suggest I'm weaker'n the others, huh? Well...shit. "Not all of 'em," I tell her, "but a fair few." It's not just me, no. "Some train to get used to it."

"So why haven't you?" she asks.

"Never found the time," which is more or less true. "Mostly it's the uppity elite Saiyans that got the luxury to do that kind of thing. Takes a while given that if you're not careful about it you end up doin' more harm than good."

She seems to be thinking for a while as she nods, like she's writing something down in her mind. "Okay," she finally says. Then she stretches out her arms and yawns and—dammit, I am _really _getting desperate here. She sees me looking at her and grins a little. "Well, I guess I can ask you more about this pod later," she says. "Wanna tell me about these healing tanks of yours?"

...

It's another hour later and she's got sketches littered all around us, and we're sitting in the middle like we've been ambushed by 'em. "Like this?" she says, holding up the one that was just sitting in front of her while she scribbled a few things in. I shrug. She's all hyped up about this and I'm starting to lose steam, hardly able to figure out how to tell her what the hell I mean. "You're not being very helpful, you know," she tells me, and for the first time I think she figures out I'm more than a little tired. "You look awful," she says as I close my eyes for just a second. "Maybe we should call it quits for the night? We can always pick up on it tomorrow, since it's not as if we're short on time."

Ugh, don't remind me—I'm gonna be stuck here for much longer than I wanna think about. But about now, I couldn't give a damn either way. "Yeah," I say, cracking one eye open a bit just to find she's staring at me real intently. My other eye opens and I turn to look back at her, this stupidly pleasant thing that, so far as I can tell, has been listening to every damn thing I've said, which, when you're used to keeping company with Vegeta and Nappa, is a little disconcerting and...nice. Nice like the way her chest goes up and down while she breathes all quietly, nice like the way her nostrils flare out like she's trying to catch the scent of something she's hunting.

But there's only one thing around here _to _hunt, and I put my face up close to hers to get a better look. Her nose widens again and her eyes stare straight into mine, like she's daring me to do what I'm thinking. Before I can think about what I'm thinking I do it, lean forward and throw my hands against her shoulders and press her down, burying my mouth into hers. Her legs squirm underneath me, kicking her sketches and notes around for a second before she settles back down, and I can feel her fingers going all the way through my hair to my scalp. My throat is rumbling and my ghost-tail is thrashing around behind me and I can feel my skin getting coated over with a layer of sweat. My body's starting to think things on its own and before it can get any farther I remind myself: blue hair, she has fucking blue hair, and it's stupid, and it's ridiculous.

But I'm in luck because she yanks her head back before I have to do it myself. "Shit," she says, breathing like she just ran some distance that's impressive for humans, "This is not happening."

My thoughts exactly.


	15. I, 15: Bulma

NOTE: The exciting thing is, I think I actually know generally what's going to be in the next three chapters! (In theory, this means I can get them done faster, but because of school and stuff, I'm not going to make any promises.)

I'm sorry things are going kind of slow, but I hope the chapters are entertaining enough. Anyway, I think it'll be worth it for the plot stuff to come!

...

It's been two months—two entire months. I've been relatively successful at not thinking about it—and by "it" I mean, you know what I mean, but I'm not going any farther, because I'm not thinking about it.

Raditz and I went right back to working on everything, sure, and he seemed just about as freaked out as I felt because we both kept a good arm's length (_his _arm's length) between us from then on. So far, I'm making pretty good progress on the pod, and I've even started some preliminary plans for my own ship. As for the healing tank? Well, I'm just taking that one slowly. Raditz is all gung-ho about it and I don't completely trust him yet.

Why, you ask?

Let's just say he thought kidnapping Gohan to try to teach him to be a Saiyan was a good idea, and Yamcha and the others _politely_ disagreed by beating his ass into the ground. But, it took all of them to do it and Raditz (allegedly) fought back tooth and nail. His injuries aren't as bad as the first time—he can still walk, and everything—but it hadn't been two days before he tried pulling that stunt that he let it slip that Saiyans get a huge power boost when they recover from near-death—which explains _everything_.

Anyway, I'm sure we'll get it sorted out, and I'm sure Raditz won't _actually _do anything to hurt anyone, most especially me or Gohan, who they seem the most worried about. I don't care what they say, he has a soft spot for that little kid and he obviously has one for me.

And normally I'd flirt with him a little, you know, kind of use myself as a bargaining chip—but at this point I really don't want to risk it.

I never did tell Yamcha what happened, and god knows Raditz is too mortified (or embarrassed) to mention it to anyone at all, even if he had someone to mention it to. The thing is, ever since then I've been trying to spend more time with Yamcha—maybe because I feel guilty, I don't know, but I just wanted to—to distract myself, I guess, and make sure it was working with us, you know? The problem is, he's been spending all his time training—in theory, to protect me from the Saiyans, which is sweet, but after that conversation I had with Vegeta and Nappa I don't know how he's going to be able to do anything—and, consequently, with all the time he spends training he has no time to spend with me. Which is fine—I mean—I'm busy too—but he's not exactly making it easy for me to stop thinking about—

Well, anyway.

At least I don't have to worry about Raditz provoking me.

Speaking of distracting myself, I'm glad to find that this afternoon I have a big, long span of free time to keep working on my drawings for the ship. Something comfortably sized—big enough that several people could stay there without being in that weird suspended sleep Raditz told me about—because after about two seconds of thought on it, traveling in a pod sounds _really _uncomfortable, and I am Bulma Briefs: I do not do "uncomfortable."

All my plans are tucked away in my little secret room, alongside the disabled scouter—mostly, I admit, because I don't want my father to see them yet. He'll just make ridiculous requests for things I "need" to include in the ship. The last capsule car I designed, he told me it needed a dashboard coffee ma—

Oh. God. Dammit. No.

I turn into my little inlet to find that somebody has yanked the handle off the door.

I think I only need one guess who.

"Er," he says as I swing the door open.

"You," I hiss out, "had better prepare to pay for this in blood."

His eyebrows shoot up for a second before his worried lips unzip into a shy little grin. Oh, _har har_, I get it, you're stronger than me, big boy. Well, not if I have anything to say about it; I'll wipe that grin off your—

"Er," he says again, "I guess I had that one coming for a while now." He sets down what he was holding and puts his hands in front of him in a distinctly Son-like fashion. I'm thrown for a loop, maybe because of my own anger (can you blame me?) or maybe because it would appear to me that somebody has sent in a clone of Raditz and didn't fill him in on the whole "stubborn" thing. See, because anytime we've been in the same room we've kept to a pretty standard procedure: I ask him a question, he pretends like he doesn't want to answer but does it anyway; I threaten him, he ignores me or threatens me back. It works out pretty well, especially combined with the aforementioned spacing between us.

"Yeah," is all I can think to say. "Now what in here have you looked at?"

"Just this thing," he says, pointing to it now that it's on my desk. Shit. The radar. "What is it?"

"None of your goddamn business," I tell him, and then realize that I probably should have played it off as nothing instead. Now he _knows _it's important.

"That so?" he picks it up again, and my personal resolution to keep away from him is crumbling quickly as I feel more and more like I'd be doing the world some good by leaping onto him and biting his nose off. Or maybe—no, nope, not going there.

"Just put it down," I tell him, and he cocks his head at me; I'm struck yet again by the still-weird thought that he really is Son's brother. He lets the loop of cord attached to the top slip around his finger and he spins it around a few times, waiting to see my reaction. I'm determined not to give him one. "Raditz," I say, and my impatience is not well-veiled based on the way that the corners of his mouth perk up into another one of those mocking grins and he spins the radar around faster. Gods, he's like a _child_.

"Bulma," he says back, his voice low. I'm sure his intent was to mock the way I said his name, but it didn't work out that way—no, instead goosebumps crawl up my arms and the small motions of his hand that were keeping the radar spinning stop, and the loop settles around the base of his finger as he seems to realize what he's doing to me.

"Clearly," I can feel my nostrils widening as they try to suck extra air into my lungs, as I try to swallow down now both the anger from before and the whatever-it-is from just moments ago, "you are just trying to make an ass of me."

"Hm," he says back absently. I can see his throat moving, like he's swallowing back more words.

"I think what we've got going on now," I continue, "is just fine. You can mock me all you want so long as you don't even _think _about laying a finger on me—"

"Too late," he mumbles.

I act like I didn't hear that one, "—It's a pretty fair trade, right?"

Raditz starts to say something when a new voice butts on in our little _moment _(thank god—I mean, literally). "Bulma, I have an update for you on Son Goku's training," Kami's words somehow echo massively in this tiny little room.

"Yeah?" I manage. Raditz looks like he might start swinging punches through the air at whatever invisible thing is talking, and so help me, if he destroys _anything_...

"It's going much more quickly than expected," he says, and from his voice I'd say he's about as close as anything green-skinned can come to glowing, "and very well. He must have practiced quite a lot even after defeating Raditz."

"I think he did," I say. Yamcha had been sparring with Son, I remember. "I'll bet he's worried to death about Gohan. Well, you know," I can't help giggling a little bit, "not really to death...since he's already there..."

"Yes," Kami sounds thoughtful, "I wondered about that. Even in my brief time with him he mentioned young Gohan several times."

"So what should I do?" I ask. "Wish him back?"

"Not yet," Kami answers quickly, "no, not yet. But soon. I just wanted to warn you, so you may start collecting the dragonballs. You still have that radar, do you not?"

My eyes dart to Raditz's hand, and I'm not sure if he sees or not—he might still be looking for the voice. "Yeah," I finally squeak out.

"If you wish," he adds, "I can send Popo to assist you."

I don't know who the hell this 'Popo' is. "No, I'll be fine," I tell him. "I need to get some fresh air anyway. But thanks. If anyone too awful has gotten a hold of one of the dragonballs, I'll bet Yamcha and Kuririn will help me."

"Of course," Kami says. "I'll contact you again when Son Goku is ready to be wished back. It may not be for a few months yet—but I thought it best to give you more time since gathering the balls may take a while. I imagine he will be quite eager to return."

"Sure," I say, and then remember the last time he talked to us. "So—is your future looking any better? I mean, you said—"

"Sadly, no," comes back the answer, and I almost regret asking it for how suddenly down Kami sounds. "But perhaps when Goku practices what he has learned from his training, he will learn something new, or at least continue to improve. Incidentally," I wait while he seems to think for a moment. One of Raditz's eyebrows is arched high as he listens. "From what little time I have spent in communication with him, I have heard he has been training in gravity higher than Earth's. Perhaps," he pauses again, and I think I know what he's going to say. It must be weird for him to ask for help. "Perhaps you could construct something that would allow him to continue training in this fashion. I would offer the Room of Spirit and Time, but I think it should be a last resort."

I'm not quite sure what he's talking about, this spirit and time business, but, hell, I'll go with it. "I'll see about doing that," I tell him. "It shouldn't be terribly difficult." Especially since given what Raditz has let slip—if I can make Son something that will let him effectively tear his body to shreds regularly (and knowing the guy, he'd be excited about the prospect), and if I can make something that will heal him quickly without using up the senzu beans—well, maybe those two asshole Saiyans will meet their end after all.

"That is good to hear," he sounds relieved. I almost wonder if he was—reading my thoughts, or something. "I will communicate with you when I have more news."

Raditz looks around. "Are we alone again?" he whispers after a minute of silence, and when I shrug a noncommittal 'yes,' he follows up with, "What the hell was _that_?"

"The god of Earth," I say. "And by the way, there's some crazy shit with him and Piccolo, so while I'm thinking about I should make it clear—if you kill either of them, the dragonballs are gone."

"Okay..." he says, and I can practically see the gears in his head figuring that this would be the surest way to make sure Son stays dead.

"Meaning if I can't fix up your tail the old-fashioned way, you're not getting it back at all," I tell him.

"_Oh_," his shoulders droop a little. "Shit."

"Well, it's not as if it's that hard. Just, you know, _don't kill him_. Simple enough, even for you, right?" I tease.

"And I'll have to stop Vegeta and Nappa," he grumbles, "if I don't have my tail back by then." He turns his eyes to me, all steeled over and determined. "So I'd better have it back by then."

"Sure," I tell him. I don't know what makes me think I owe this guy anything. I don't know what makes me think he'll still be around (or I'll still be around) _after _these two show up (and are either defeated, or kill us all). I don't know what makes me think that spending another two months, or six months, or two years at least an arm's length from him won't help me care less. And I don't know what stupid little idea has gotten in my head to convince me that he's any different from the other two, because I'm sure as hell he's not. But somehow I've started thinking that this murderous monster is the sort of thing I could get used to.

"So," he finally says, and I realize that I've been absentmindedly chewing on my thumbnail, and promptly remove it from my mouth when he looks at me. "This thing is the 'radar,' then?" He holds it up.

Well, shit, I guess he did see me when I looked at it. I could lie, but... "Yeah," I tell him. "But you're not going to look at it again at _least _until we've got Son back." I stride up to him and snatch it from his hand, his fingers loose and relenting as I do so. I stuff it back into the drawer and give him the hardest, meanest glare I can manage. "You don't want to know what I'll inflict upon you if you so much as..." I start, but my voice chokes up in my throat when his hand closes around mine forcefully. I glance up at him, steeling myself in case I have to grab the nearest sharp object and not miss the mark this time, but when his eyes meet mine they're not aggressive. He just...stares.

"It's not a fair trade," he finally says. My brain tries to rewind to some point in some conversation where that would make sense, until it finds the spot. I open my mouth to speak—what I want to say, I don't know—but he keeps going, "I mean, I can't say I don't enjoy reminding you of your many faults," he says, "as often as possible," I open my mouth again but then snap it shut, "but, shit, it's not as if you don't hassle me yourself. That plus the other bit about me not, what'd you say, laying a finger on you, well, it don't make for a very fair trade—not in the least."

"Of course it's fair," I pull my hand out of his when his grip loosens, "If you can't touch me, I think it's pretty damn obvious that I can't touch _you_—"

"Which is the most awful fucking idea I've ever heard," he says matter-of-factly as his beady little eyes steady on me and wait for a reaction. He doesn't get one, probably mostly because I don't know _how_ to react, so he keeps talking, "If you're going off to gather these balls now, and if you're making my dear little brother a special machine just for him to get stronger when you use the balls to bring him back instead of my tail," he keeps a careful distance away as I turn my body so it covers the drawer with the scouter as I open it to check and make sure it's still there—good. I had to make sure—he seems like he's up to something. "Well, then you're obviously gonna be slowing up on a few promises you made to _me_."

I guess it's true—about the tail, at least. I'm definitely going to barrel straight ahead with work on that healing tank, though. I'm about to inform him of this—let him in on the fact that he's wrong yet again—when a tilt of his head (that I pray was carefully calculated and not something that comes naturally to him) keeps my mouth shut. "So I'd say you at least oughtta compromise," he says, "given all this." The reserved nature of his movements has me on edge in a weird sort of way; he shifts his weight back and forth like he's waiting for me to attack him. He seems simultaneously half a breath from doing something dangerous and compulsive, and half a breath from leaving the room. "I recommend," he speaks again, each word deliberate, "you get those damned icy human hands back in my hair right now."

"That's not unreasonable," I say, grinning (fuck it, why the hell not? it's this or fooling myself until one of us is dead, I gather), and he shivers visibly, "which must be a record for you."

"Don't worry," he says, stepping closer, "it won't last." He rests a wrist on either of my shoulders, his hands inches from pulling me closer to his or popping my head off, but I know which it'll be. "It ain't my nature to be reasonable."

...

As it turns out, I do need help getting one the dragonballs.

But as it also turns out, Raditz is much more accessible than Yamcha and Kuririn at the moment. Half of me is a little worried—once he knows what they look like, he can make off with the radar and look for them himself. But feeling like he's on a tightrope with spikes underneath and a naked woman on the other side makes a man do a lot of things he wouldn't normally, I think, and I don't think he'll fuck himself over _that _badly if he knows what's good for him. (Not, mind you, that I would actually argue that he _does _know what's good for him.)

And anyway...I'm a little afraid to talk to Yamcha more than I have to (and he's been training as hard as ever, so luckily for me, I haven't spoken to him much—plus, Raditz keeps away when Yamcha's around—I think he knows it's in his best interest). I mean, Raditz and I haven't actually screwed, but I'm still well aware that I'm cheating on the poor guy, and after all the accusations I've thrown around at him, well...I feel kind of awful.

But, apparently, not awful enough to stop with the monkey business. So to speak.

Anyway, knowing my big mouth I'll accidentally unleash upon Yamcha some comment about the backs of Raditz's teeth, and the rest will be history.

And Yamcha's a nice guy. He doesn't deserve that. He...I...I don't know. I don't know what to say to him, or to Raditz either, but, shit, this probably isn't even a permanent arrangement. Maybe Son will come back and he and Piccolo will kill Raditz along with the other Saiyans, like they probably should have the first time. Then things can just go on like before; Yamcha's baseball games, our restaurant dates, his cute little apologies with a bouquet in hand for things that probably weren't even his fault anyway, his gentle hands and his quivering voice asking me if he's going too fast.

Maybe Son and Piccolo will kill Raditz. Maybe the Saiyans will kill us. But if that long-haired bastard and I are both alive at the end of this, I don't know what I'm going to do.

"This cave?" he asks as we approach it.

I got myself into this. I got myself in way too deep.

I mean, hell—when I told him where it was, he didn't even give me time to toss out the capsule with the plane. He snatched me up and rocketed the both of us over here. Because I let him. Flying...it was tough to breathe, up there, between the thin air rushing past us and his arms crushing my ribcage. That's why I didn't protest, that's why. (I know it's not true, but it's nice to be able to tell it to myself, to practice, in case.)

"Yeah," I tell him. "I tried going in earlier, but there are a bunch of things in there that want to eat me. Giant lizards, you know, stuff like that. I barely made it out," my hand drifts to the shotgun on my hip, "and I know I can't reload fast enough to make it all the way through. I could've rigged something up easy enough, I guess...but...this is faster." Plus...I don't really like the thought of being the one to kill all those things, and somehow, I doubt that admitting to it would earn me points in Raditz's book. I don't know—I defend myself, of course, but it seems different, just mowing down a cave full of creatures to get them dead, to get to the prize on the other side. I guess it's a miniature version of what Raditz does, though, isn't it? His dream job.

"Sorry, stopped listening once you said there was dinner in there," Raditz says from just outside the entrance. "What am I looking for, exactly?"

Well, I guess he has to find out eventually what the dragonballs look like. Now's as good a time as any. I pull one from my bag and hold it up. "Like this, except it has a different number of stars in it. Should be two stars, or five, or seven," I dig through the bag a bit more to check what the other one I have is, "or four."

"Blah, blah, blah," I hear from inside the cave, followed by a series of small explosions and a lot of laughter.

I guess things could be worse.


	16. I, 16: Gohan

NOTE: This chapter isn't what I thought it was going to be (serves me right for thinking I knew what would happen for once), but that's not to say I don't like how it turned out.

Oh yeah, and I've done a little bit of art that's somewhat related to this story (just a picture of Bulma and Raditz). You can find a link to it on my profile. I might have to try to do a little art of this chapter, too, if I have time...

...

When I wake up, my head hurts—real, real bad. My head and my neck.

My eyes are blurry but they get clear pretty quick after I rub them off a little bit.

Aw.

Oh no.

I get cold when I see him standing over me.

"Hello," Raditz says to me. "Bratling."

"My name is _Gohan_," I tell him. I'm still afraid of him, but less afraid because last time he did this everybody helped save me and even I did a lot of it, and I'm a lot stronger now, and I think if I really really had to I could run away from him fast enough to get help. Piccolo says I'm very strong. He says I'm doing a good job with learning about how to make my feelings my strength instead of my weakness and I think he's talking about the times where sometimes when I would get mad I'd accidentally break things but now I can kind of make sure I don't do something I'm not supposed to and sort of put my anger in a different direction.

"Not a very good name," he says. Meanie. "'Bratling' will have to do until I can think of something more suitable for a Saiyan." I can see him staring at my tail. He doesn't have one anymore. He's not going to try to take my tail from me, is he?

"Take me back to the others. Take me back to my friends!" I tell him. "Take me back to Piccolo!"

"I will," he says, tilting his head in a way that makes me nervous. "And don't worry; I'm sure your so-called master is keeping track of you right now. Speaking of which," he leans in, "can you do that, as well?"

"Do what?" I ask. Keep track of me?

"Pinpoint your senses on someone. I thought Kakarrot was bullshitting me when he made such comments but I get the feeling all the fighters here can do it," he says.

I don't know if I should lie to him or not, but I'm not really that good of a liar, so maybe it would be a bad idea. "I sort of can," I tell him.

Raditz crouches down and looks me over. Before I can push his arm away he pulls the tie out of my hair, that was keeping it in a ponytail in back so it wouldn't get in my face. My hair has gotten pretty long since I started training out here. How long has it been? Almost a year, I'm pretty sure, since Piccolo first took me away. I should go visit Mommy again, and she could tell me down to the minute how long I've been gone. She would probably tell me that I need a haircut, too. "Better," he says, I guess about my hair. "Now, tell me how you do it."

"How I...how I sense people?" I ask.

"Yes," he says. "You teach me that and I'll tell you more about being a Saiyan."

"But I don't want to be a Saiyan!" I tell him, shaking my head. It feels weird, with my hair all loose.

"But you _are _one," he narrows his eyes at me, "or at least enough of one for me."

"For you?" This guy isn't making any sense. I...I don't know what's going on. Last time, he was a lot meaner about it. He started yelling at me a bunch, and so I got really nervous and I hit him, and then he hit me, and then Piccolo showed up and then Yamcha showed up and then all the others did. Raditz had told me, when he was yelling at me, about that they needed another person to help them kill everybody on this one planet, and I told him, no way. So I don't know why he came back, but now he's acting nicer.

"You're my brother's son," he says, "and it don't matter how much I hate Kakarrot's guts, it don't mean that I hate yours, though I'd say I'd be perfectly justified in it." He narrows his eyes again. "You're nothing like a Saiyan whelp. But maybe we can fix that. At the very least, you're strong."

"I don't need to be _fixed_," I tell him. "I'm just fine! And after this I'm going back to studying, anyway! I," I pause, because, I don't know, I mean, I'm pretty sure I am—I actually kind of like learning this fighting stuff, I mean, because it's like studying too, you know? Except that you practice it with your body instead of a pencil, "I, I think so, at least."

"You think?" he raises up one eyebrow.

"Yeah!" I say. "Anyway, you better leave me alone or else me and Piccolo and everybody else will beat you up again."

He grins a little bit, and it's way scarier than when my daddy grins. It reminds me a little of something, though, the way the tiny bits of sunlight coming down through the trees that go over the top of this clear little area in the forest catch onto his teeth. It kind of makes me think of...how scary I used to think Piccolo was. "No, they won't," he says, "not so long as I don't do anything to you."

"How do you know?" I ask. Okay, I know I said how I kind of like learning about fighting, but the thing is, actually _doing _it when something really bad could happen is still scary. But that's okay, right? I mean, even the others get scared, and I'm only a little kid! (That's what they always say, when Piccolo starts saying how I need to work harder.) So I really hope...I really hope I don't have to fight him all by myself.

"Ah, right, you were unconscious," he says. Okay, so I guess that's why my head hurts; he knocked me out. "After I exchanged a few words with your friend Piccolo, he seemed to believe you would come to no harm."

No way Piccolo would do that to me! Then again, maybe this is like the time he made that big dinosaur chase me around. Maybe...maybe it's a test. "Am I supposed to fight you?" I ask. Oh, shucks, I shouldn't have said that, since like Piccolo said, surprise is important and I could've caught him off-guard if I just went for it. But still...what if he wasn't gonna? That wouldn't be fair at all.

Raditz's grin gets bigger. "Well, not unless you demand it." He seems a little nervous—maybe he feels about the same about fighting me as I do about fighting him. But that would be silly, wouldn't it? "Is it so wrong that I should want to have a civil conversation with my nephew?"

"N-no," I say.

"So are you going to tell me how you can sense people?" he asks.

"I," I start, "I could, but it's a little bit tough to explain...but...but then you're just gonna tell your friends about it and then it'll be harder to fight them, so I shouldn't! What if it was my fault if Daddy died again, or if Piccolo died, or—"

"The Namekian won't die," he says. I guess he's talking about Piccolo when he says 'Namekian.' "Not until I have my tail back, at least."

Huh? Well...I dunno if I should even ask him what he means.

"Come on," he glances around, "you can tell me."

"But—" I start to try to say something about like what I said before, because he could still kill everybody else, right?

"Look," he lowers his voice, glancing around again, "just..." And then he stops talking, and breathes out real heavily. "Damn," he says, "how'd my family turn out to be so fucked up?"

Which seems like a weird thing to say when you think about all the stuff Daddy told me about him, about what a mean guy he is, and all the stuff I've seen him do. I'd say he's the one that's messed up. Right?

He looks at me for a while, taking a few more deep breaths that are so deep I can see his chest going up and down. Then he starts talking, I guess maybe to himself. "Vegeta's so damned hung up on being a prince, so damned hung up on who's stronger than him and who ain't, acts like he's gotta be different than me or he'll get mistaken for a commoner, as if it matters now. Blueblood never knew the kinda life he would've had as a real Saiyan. Too young. Nappa, the fool, follows him around like he knows what's best. Every second he starts being who he's supposed to be, Vegeta reins him back in again. Then Kakarrot, shit...and now you."

So I guess he was talking to me. But I can't make very much sense of it, since I dunno who he's talking about. Or what he's talking about.

He stands up and starts walking away. "Get over here, kid," he looks back and jerks his chin in the direction he was walking. I follow him, 'cause...if Piccolo really does think he's not gonna hurt me, well...I guess I can try to believe that. I follow right behind him, right behind his big long hair that's so long that even though he's way taller than me, I'm taller than where his hair ends. We stop at this big old puddle that looks like it coulda been from where a stream used to go. All of a sudden, he grabs the back of my collar and holds me so that I'm facing over the puddle, and he crouches down and looks into it too. "Look at that," he tells me, kind of quietly. "Who do you think you are?"

In the reflection from the puddle, I can see that now that my hair is out of that ponytail, it looks a lot like his—a whole lot like his. From the way my tail is in the air behind me, if I didn't know that he didn't have a tail right now and I just saw what I see in the puddle, I wouldn't know if it was his or mine. His eyes are squintier than mine normally, but right now, with him looking in too, he seems surprised, and his eyes almost make me think of my Daddy's.

It makes me feel...weird...to see us like that. I feel like the big balloon inside of me, full of me not liking him because of all the awful stuff he did, is more like how balloons get when they're a little too old, kind of squishy. I feel like it's different now than it was before, where any second the balloon could have puffed up and pressed on my insides and made me really mad, like now the balloon's so squishy it couldn't get like that again, not all the way. I want to say something to him but I don't know what it is, so my mouth ends up sort of half-open as I keep staring at us in the water.

"Ain't many of us left," he says, quiet. "Fucking meteor shower." He lets go of me and I slip and fall into the puddle.

I dunno exactly what he's talking about, though it sounds a little bit familiar. "Huh?" I say.

"That's how our planet was destroyed. The planet I came from, the planet your father came from, the planet your grandfather came from," he tells me. "Almost everyone died."

"What was my grandpa like?" I ask. I can't help it; Mommy says her daddy is my grandpa, so I guess if my daddy had a daddy he'd be my grandpa too. And my daddy's daddy is...Raditz's daddy.

"Didn't see him often," he grunts. "But that's how it always was for us, for us Saiyans. Always off fighting. But it ain't as if seeing family less means you care for 'em less. It was just the way things were."

Sort of like how my daddy's gone now, but I still love him, I guess. "Okay," I say. "But what was he like?"

"About like any other guy," Raditz says. Well, that doesn't tell me much! I kind of want to say that, but it seems like it would be a bad idea. He _said _he wouldn't hurt me, but I probably shouldn't do anything too bad just in case. "So he was like you?" I ask, since that's kind of close but sounds less mean.

Raditz shrugs. "Tough to say, since he had something I don't got and I can't be sure if he was better or worse for it."

"What is it?" I take off my shirt so I can wring out all the water from when I fell into the puddle. It's a little messy, but I guess Piccolo can give me a new one next time I see him. I don't know how, but he can somehow zap clothes onto people. He gets mad when I ask about it.

"A son," he says, and kicks the puddle a bit. "Well, two, counting Kakarrot, but it ain't as if he ever got a chance to know him."

"Do you wish you had a son?" I ask him.

"Like I said," he speaks again, "I ain't sure if he was better or worse for having me around, but whatever it was, I reckon it'd be the same way for me. Anyway," Raditz kicks the puddle again, "it may be that I already have offspring somewhere in the universe I'll never know about."

Huh? "How?" I ask, and he just gives me this mean look, the same face Mommy made when I asked her once if I could eat dessert before dinner instead of after, like I'm supposed to already know the answer. I don't like the feeling when somebody thinks I should know something and I don't.

"If they're out there," he keeps going, so I guess he's not gonna answer my question, "I'm not so sure I wanna see 'em." Now he's looking at me again, instead of at his boots.

"Why not?" I ask. That doesn't make any sense at all...I mean, how could he have children and not even know it, and how could he ever not want to see them? He really is a mean person. He just mumbles really quietly, though, something about pain. Maybe he's afraid that they'll be strong and hurt him when they find out how mean he is.

"Shit," he finally says loud enough that I can hear, "but you're just a kid; what do you know?"

I think there might be one really good way to answer that. "I know how to sense the energy coming off of things," I tell him, and he smirks.

I dunno what's going on, but I think I almost feel like being nice to Raditz. Maybe that's what Daddy would want—he always talked about how important it is to forgive people. But how could I forgive somebody for killing Daddy? Well, maybe I can't. Maybe that's impossible.

But what if Raditz is right, and there really is a Saiyan living inside me? He would want me to help him. Maybe Raditz is like Piccolo, maybe everybody's scared but he's not gonna do anything. I heard Tenshinhan saying how Piccolo used to do evil things, back before he was this Piccolo, whatever that means. I heard it's his fault Kuririn, who is my daddy's best friend, died once. But now Daddy is friends with Piccolo.

"Guess so," he says. "Then just for your peace of mind," he starts turning away, stuffing his hands into the pockets of the shorts he must've got from Bulma, "I'll wait 'til I'm nice and far away before I start killing my dinner," he looks like he's trying to decide on a direction, or maybe like he just wants to look at me out of the corner of his eye without seeming like that's what he's doing, "so you can't feel it." He sounds like he's joking, but also like he'd rather not be.

I wonder if he means catching rabbits to eat like I do. "Wait," I say.

I hope this is the right thing to do.

"I'll tell you how."


	17. I, 17: Raditz

NOTE: Eep, I hope this chapter is okay. Lots of introspection.

We'll see, anyway. Hope you enjoy it! (And by the way, I _swear _it'll only be...er...not that many more chapters...until some serious divergence happens...I promise...just...er...thanks for your patience; first person POV is making this story go more slowly than I had anticipated, which is both good and bad. At least the chapters are pretty short?)

...

"Fuck," I say as soon as I wake up, due to the nature of how that waking up happens—I just rolled off my bed. I'm still blaming my tail for this one. If I had the damn thing there, rather than just _feeling _like I do, it woulda stopped me. I'm glad I got up now, anyhow, because I've got this sensation hovering around me like some important shit is going down today, the sort of thing I ought not miss.

Bulma's way-too-happy mother opens the door at the sound of me falling off the bed, supposedly to check and make sure I'm okay. Well, I doubt that's really it. Somehow she figured out there's some weird-ass thing between me and her daughter and now she has the idea in her head that if she checks on me often enough, she'll get proof, or god knows what else she might be looking for. Seems _way _too happy to be feeding the guy who woulda slaughtered everyone on the planet short of those damned injuries that kept me in bed for long enough for that woman to start fuzzying me up too much.

Speaking of those injuries, it occurs to me that it's been nearly a year since I got here. I would have expected Vegeta and Nappa to arrive by now, but for all I know, they're farther off—and if this 'Kami' is right guess it'll still be a while yet—long enough that maybe I can get my tail back with those dragonballs and not have to worry about dealing with Vegeta and Nappa on the matter (god knows they'd come up with something else they'd think would be more important than my tail to use this so-called "wish" on). I sure as hell don't want to have to try to pick a fight with 'em, because I know I'd lose, and losing to Vegeta means dying, which I don't like one bit.

All I have to do until then is figure out what to do with this woman. Maybe it'd be less risky if I kill her right now—now that I know where the radar is and where the balls are and all that shit. Doubt I'd enjoy it as much as I wish I could say I would, but, hell, it's better than doing something stupid if she weakens me too much. Of course, alongside that comes the real distinct problem that all her friends would come beat me up, and even if they couldn't win, one of 'em would go wish Kakarrot back with the balls and _then _if they all gang up on me I likely couldn't hold out.

But I could always just try to keep a fair distance away from her, not that that worked before.

At least it'll be easier if she continues to not fuck me. I know it's not that she don't want to—trust me, she does, I can tell—but these Earthlings seem to get themselves way too mixed up in sticky things like, whatsit, morals. She feels all bad for that Yamcha kid. About the second I think we might do it, she gets all teary-eyed and rambles about how he's working so hard to try to keep her safe from the very thing trying to figure out how the hell her belt works. Of course she assumes I'm lying when I say it ain't me she has to worry about, but Nappa and Vegeta, but I guess given how much time I've been spending thinking about how and when I'm gonna do the inevitable (everybody here is gonna die and given all the shit she's done for me I can at least be nice about it to her), her fears ain't so unfounded.

That aside, I've got a suspicion sneaking up on me that she's holding out wanting to see what Kakarrot's like when he comes back. Now, from what I've seen, I doubt she'd do a damn thing about it even if her wildest dreams come true, whatever the hell those may be, but I'm not about to try to figure out women, most especially ones from this planet. All I know is, she's got the hots for me but ain't following through.

Thinking about offing Bulma is making me nervous about this whole ordeal so I think about some of the better things that'll come when we clear this planet—the smell of burning, the rings of distant screaming in the city I just left for a little while to come back to finish off later, showing anybody who thinks they're worth anything on this planet the kind of death that they deserve for thinking bullshit like that.

If I kill her first, maybe all that other stuff will make me forget about it, anyway.

My knees are starting to feel weird and I can only assume it's because I haven't had a good breakfast yet, so I pull on whatever is lying around. Oh, look, Miss Way-Too-Excited-To-Catch-Me-In-The-Act-With-Her-Daughter left me a basket of clean clothes by the door. There _are _perks to being stuck here, if few.

I ain't exactly expecting to find Bulma in the kitchen when I head over there, namely because she had another one of her little breakdowns last night. This is how it went down: after a pretty damn satisfying sparring match with my way-stronger-than-he-should-be nephew, I went back to test out her healing-tank-in-progress. It ain't perfect, but it sure as hell is better than old-fashioned recovery. It was only a couple weeks ago she got this model running but she's still working on the solution shit that they pump in there. So it took a while longer than it shoulda, and didn't totally heal everything, but it helped.

She was there to let me out of it last night, in case something went wrong, and I got out all well and good and everything, and, naturally, she just stands there staring at my naked ass. (Can't blame her, really.) I tell her she's welcome to it, she rolls her eyes at me and hands me a towel and tells me to hurry up because after she cleans up my mess she's off to keep working on building this spaceship she's making. I see my opening and tell her a couple hours won't hurt the ship's feelings, and she starts snapping at me 'til she realizes the time frame I used and I can't hold back a grin—I admit it, Nappa taught me that one.

So while she looks all dazed about the _hours _instead of _minutes _thing I start mumbling about how I'll make it through and start pulling on some of the shorts she made to be like the old ones from my uniform. Seeing her chances dwindling fast, she tells me to wait for a second while she thinks about it, and I act all patient, and she keeps getting a little closer, and then I'm sucking her tongue into my teeth and then _bam_—something or another I do makes her think of that stupid punk and she pulls back and starts ranting about me killing Kakarrot, and Yamcha _trying so hard_ and all this other shit. I say something or another that she would have me believe is stupid, and then she storms off like she ain't gonna make it out of range for me to hear her cry if she don't walk fast enough.

I'd be more pissed about it except that it happens about every other week. I'm pretty sure she's just stringing me along, but, hell, I fall for it every time. Don't ask me why—even if I knew the answer, I wouldn't tell you. It's just a little closer every time and then she starts realizing shit that any sane person woulda thought about, oh, I don't know, probably at least a few seconds before deciding that making out with the kinda guy who's picked his teeth with the bones of more peoples than she can imagine, at least a quarter of which look a hell of a lot like her own, is a good idea.

Then, normally, she goes back and locks herself in her lab for a while (hours, days) and then comes out and acts like nothing ever happened. Honest to god, the past half year feels like the same two weeks over and over again. The only thing to help mark time has been the kind of stuff she's come back out talking about—and, of course, the dragonballs. But we finished getting those some time ago. By the time it came to finding the last one, she was just _looking _for reasons to bring me along. I ain't complaining, because at least one of those times involved some sort of rule about wearing only very small pieces of cloth when going in the water, but I gotta admit that half the reason I went in the first place was that I was sure she'd corner me in some cave and yank my pants down. Yeah, most everybody I've seen knows better than to tease a Saiyan like she does, but I guess I ain't been keeping up my end of the bargain, what with that I haven't killed her yet to drive the idea home.

But I'll save thinking about killing her for later. There's something else important going on today, and it ain't until I actually get into the kitchen and see Bulma there that it occurs to me what that thing is.

She's got the bag with the dragonballs laid out, and Kakarrot's brat is standing there beside her, looking at 'em as they glow. The Namekian is on the other side of the room, looking at me with eyes like he knows shit I don't. Soon's I walk in the brat looks worried, I gather because it also just occurred to him again that I'm the reason his father's gotta be wished back to life or whatever in the first place. "Remember," I tell him, 'cause I'd best get it over with now, "I ain't gonna kill him _yet_."

"Right," he says, "the tail."

"And good morning to you, too," Bulma says, and she looks a little pissed, but not as bad as she oughtta from how she was acting last night. Great, she's just gonna act, once again, like we weren't sucking face twelve hours ago. That is, this is her _normal_ type of pissed, not her _special-reserved-just-for-me _type of pissed. I do not like that I am somehow disappointed to realize this. "We're wishing Son back today," she finally says. "I'm surprised you remembered."

Well, I didn't, but she don't need to know. I shrug.

"I can't promise he won't kill you the second he sees you," she says.

The whelp seems like he wants to say something, but like he don't know what—I can tell, he thinks his precious daddy would never do a thing like that, but at the same time, I'm sure he don't like thinking about that number I played on Kakarrot when I killed him—maybe he even hopes it's gonna happen, that Kakarrot will up and kill me. Well, I ain't ready to die.

"Also," she adds, "you know I won't stop him, since he has a damn good reason to want to."

Aw, well don't that just give me the warm fuzzies. We've both been thinking about the other meeting a violent, awful death this morning.

I don't think she knows what she wants to do with me—given that I'm _the other side _or whatever, especially once Nappa and Vegeta show up to show Kakarrot he ain't such hot shit. (Incidentally, I've gotten pretty strong myself in these past months. Traveling in space you hardly got any time to train, and if you get assigned a handful of easy missions in a row, all far away from each other, it's easy to go far too long without enough physical exertion to improve. Vegeta figures Freeza assigns at least his stuff real personal with just that in mind, and maybe even Nappa's and mine, 'cause the Saiyans give him shivers. But since Kakarrot's brat decided he could put up with me he's been pretty useful—for instance, I can close my eyes and still know if the Namekian is moving toward me to try to punch my lights out—not to mention that we sparred now and again, and I really hate admitting I got shown what-for by a half-Saiyan whelp, but I did. Maybe I'm still stronger than Kakarrot—we'll see.)

"Well then, what are you waiting for?" I say. Waiting makes me nervous—gotta spend all that effort trying to think up reasons Kakarrot won't do what I would, and kill me then and there.

"Don't try anything funny," Bulma packs the balls up into the bag again and starts walking out the door. "Kill Son again and you will die a _very _painful death." The Namekian chortles a little, and I wonder if he might know what she's talking about, or if he's just been warned enough times, or what. The brat seems to agree with Bulma. Well, whatever. I wasn't gonna. Still, imagining how Bulma would follow through on this 'very painful death' is intriguing—I feel a little like throwing up, a little like boning her on the spot. It ain't that I wanna die, but imagining her being that powerful is kind of...well, anyway.

...

You know, in my time I've seen some pretty crazy shit. These dragonballs are not the craziest shit I've ever seen. But they're up there. Most especially the way that the second Bulma sets 'em all together outside and shouts to some invisible dragon, the sky is like some doomsday omen (and me? I know doomsday), all boiling and dark and lashing out at everything in it. As the light that comes off the balls flashes more and more brightly, I see why we came outside—out explodes this gigantic dragon, practically endless. When he starts talking in a booming, rumbling voice, you get the distinct impression he brought the big dark clouds just to scare the shit out of you.

Everybody seems at least a little surprised, but I'd wager the brat has never seen this thing before, given the way his legs shake. He scoots a little closer to the Namekian. Bulma, she steps forward and crosses her arms. "We want to bring Son Goku back to life!" she shouts up to him, and before I can tell what's going on, the dragon is gone and the balls are turning to stone, floating up into the air, flying off in all directions.

Well, that was fucking weird.

But I don't see Kakarrot anywhere. "Where is he?" I ask.

"I think Kami has to go get him," Bulma says, looking up at the quickly lightening sky and tapping her chin while she thinks, "and then he has to travel back here. So I guess it might take a little whi—"

"Hey, guys!" I hear his godawful voice from a ways behind me, and I try the whelp's trick and stretch my senses out and—

_Damn_.

Well, fuck, I don't even need to test it out to tell, my little brother can officially kick my ass.

For now.

But you know what?

I'm gonna do something about it. I ain't some helpless thing. 'Cause for now, Bulma likes me enough to let me use the healing tank, and I think I can keep it that way.

And then it don't matter so much what she thinks, 'cause I've got a plan, and if Kakarrot of all people can get that much stronger, _I _sure as hell can.

Maybe he ain't strong enough to beat Vegeta and Nappa—maybe he is. I remember he could do that thing where his power shoots up all of a sudden, and now that the whelp has explained to me what he knows, I think I get it. And, hell, if this is only a fraction of his power, I suspect there ain't no way for me to know until he lets it all loose—and even then, I'd have to have the scouter to measure it against what I know Vegeta's is.

Aw, but hell, there's no way he can beat Vegeta, anyhow. It's at least a little comforting to know he'll meet his end soon enough, even if it ain't me who does it.

It'll be a while before I can really work on my plan, I guess, if the stuff Bulma's told me while we were looking for the balls is true. In the meantime, I guess the best thing I can do is make sure she gets that healing tank done. And the ship—or, at the very least, my pod.

But now that Kakarrot's done hugging his son and giving the Namekian the biggest damn grin I've ever seen, and even pulling Bulma up into a hug (makes my hairs stand on end when she gives him a big old hug back; must be pretty noticeable, because the Namekian looks at me).

Then he turns to me and his shiny soft-as-his-planet eyes ice over. He keeps speaking to the others. "Thanks for taking care of Gohan, Piccolo," he says. "I can tell you've both gotten a lot stronger since I died, especially Gohan." Then he says to me: "You have, too."

"Yeah," I say. I guess that Kami guy isn't full of shit, guess he was right thinking that whatever training Kakarrot would get would make him stronger; now I'm here sounding like a wuss because I don't wanna piss Kakarrot off and meet my death because of it.

Kakarrot looks at Bulma, maybe like he's got the suspicion it's her fault I got stronger—I don't know if he's smart enough to make that jump. "He hasn't been causing much trouble?" he asks.

"Not since your..." she says, kind of trailing off, "no, not really."

Well, I guess I might resent her for brushing me off so easily, but I ain't exactly been going out of my way to give her a hard time. After all, just about everything I'm gonna need to get away from here in good shape depends on her finishing the things she wants to get done anyway. I really had no choice but helping her. Kakarrot quirks an eyebrow at me, and then glances at the brat, who shrugs. Kakarrot says, "Has he been bothering you at all, Gohan?"

He shakes his head—good for him, 'cause I suspect anything else might've made my life hell. "We spar sometimes," he says, and Kakarrot seems surprised. He looks at me funny and I stuff my arms over my chest. He looks like he's trying to decide whose side I'm on, narrowing his eyes at me like this requires a real elaborate thought process.

"Do I need to kill a small, fluffy creature to prove I'm still bad?" I ask him. "Don't worry, I ain't planning on going soft like you."

He gives me this look that can't mean anything but that he wants to talk to me later, and yeah, I'll admit it, soon's I realize it I'm freaking the hell out. Dammit, why'd he have to manage to get so strong, so fast? He's gonna corner me, and rip my guts out for being the kind of brother a Saiyan would be proud of.

"You gonna fight on our side?" he asks, and I've never heard him so serious—almost don't recognize his voice behind how dark it is.

Of course, there's the real answer, and then there's the one he wants to hear, that won't get me killed but would sure as hell carve a gaping hole in my pride. I think of Vegeta and Nappa showing up, wondering who'll win—could Kakarrot ever really get strong enough to make Vegeta worried? And if I'm on the wrong side I'm dead for sure. But still—ain't no way Kakarrot could measure up to Vegeta, or probably even Nappa, no matter how much he's holding his power back right now.

I imagine cities burning, getting away from this godforsaken planet and back to what I do best, imagine snapping the humans' weak little bodies.

Imagine leaving this place with my tail back and Kakarrot dead and never thinking of it ever again.

Imagine Nappa crushing the whelp's head in—and maybe it's just his resemblance to me that makes me cringe at the thought, picturing my younger self in his hands.

Imagine Vegeta shoving his fingers into blue hair and blasting her head off.

Damn.

All I can manage is a, "We'll see," and I try to stop thinking before it starts sounding like the truth.


	18. I, 18: Bulma

NOTE: What does it mean when Bardock's testicles are established as a major bonding point between two of your main characters?

On that note, goodness, I hope this chapter is okay. XD

...

With Son back, everything just seems...better. More hopeful. Yamcha comes over more often, and I'm not sure if it's because the three-on-one sessions he says he and the others have sparring Son take so much out of him that he's decided to rest more, or if he's just learning so much from Son that he feels like he can take more breaks. I haven't seen any of it for myself (of course; I never do), but he says Son has learned some really crazy techniques. They all ganged up on him to try to get him to teach them and according to Yamcha, Son's excuse for not doing that is that the techniques are "too dangerous." As if what they do isn't too dangerous already! But if anybody can repeatedly put himself in danger without anything bad coming of it, it's Son. I told him about Kami's advice that I make him a gravity machine, one of the few times I've seen him in the past month or so since he's come back. Being Son, his first concern was that he wouldn't be able to train outside, and he just asked if I could make him heavier clothes.

Well, I'm not one to turn down a challenge, and they're almost done. Raditz caught wind, and he wants them too. I...well, I haven't decided what to do, yet. I think I don't really need to worry about whether or not Son will be able to kill him on the spot now, if it comes to it, or once the other Saiyans show up—and according to Kami's latest update, the dark cloud of doom looms some year or more away, and who knows how much could change in that time—I'm not sure I should risk it. Still...what if there's a chance that he might...well, no, that's stupid. He doesn't give a shit about the Earth. But then again, he himself has maybe said this one too many times, so maybe he...I don't know. Maybe I'll ask Son's thoughts, and Piccolo's, since, oddly enough, the guy really _does _seem to be on our side. I think Gohan's been a good influence, on him and on Raditz.

Speak of the devil—in waltzes Raditz himself, before I can hide my progress on the weighted clothes. "I didn't hate that color before," he says, picking up the shirt when he reaches my desk. It's not as if I could stop him—it's too heavy. I have to put it into a capsule in order to transport it. "Damn," his eyes widen as he struggles to keep from dropping the thing on his feet. I'm pretty proud of it—it's _almost _as thin as regular clothing. I doubt its thickness is of any importance to Son—half the time expect him to show up wearing some kind of animal hide on his back with a cute little comment like, "My dinner left its coat behind!" So right now all I have to work on is ventilation. Luckily for me, I have the perfect inspiration—the parts of Raditz's armor that I was able to save. It seems really solid, so you'd think with the kind of sweat a warrior would generate (and I am made to think, yet again, of the constant talk of burning cities down, and burning huts down, and burning people down, that I try to put out of my mind when Raditz is standing as close to me as he is) this would be a problem. Not so—the stuff is like sponge that acts like a hard plastic when struck with sudden blows. With gradual movements, it's malleable—and it wicks sweat out. So does that bizarre stretchy fabric he wore underneath. I would die to work in one of the labs where this stuff has been in use for hundreds of years, but then again, I think out there the phrase "I would die" has a different meaning.

"When will mine be done?" he asks, setting it back down on the desk. I wince as the desk creaks under the weight. Of course, now that it's right here, almost complete, I can't just keep lying. But I always have a backup plan. "I was thinking of making you some armor," I tell him. "Unless you'd rather look just like Son?" There. That'll work.

"Hell no!" he almost knocks my chair and I across the room with the way he throws his arms up; I stand up in surprise, or possibly as a delayed reaction. "Make me the armor!"

This guy is too easy. "All right. But I'm going to redesign it a little."

"I liked mine," he turns his nose up like he's offended—hell, he actually might be. "There was nothing wrong with it."

"Did you choose it yourself, then?" I ask. I'm not sure if I care or not, but I'll bet I'll learn something interesting this way, because if I can be certain of one thing, it's that Raditz will take any excuse he can get to talk about himself, and then some.

"Naw," he says, thoughtfully. Heh. Yep. "I mean, I had to replace my armor so often, so it ain't as if I could get attached to any of it. I just started favoring design 'cause..."

"Let me guess," I hold my hand up, "because it didn't include pants."

He grins. "Yeah, I mean, in the end we all just had to wear whatever shit Freeza and his guys gave us, but at least that one—" he pauses for a second, and I don't miss it.

"Freeza?" I ask. "This your boss?" Just a guess, but I think a good one based on the way his eyebrows wiggle how they do when he's trying to think of something to say. Finally, he shrugs. "So you just like him more than you like me, huh? And you want to keep his armor design?" Obviously, I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, but if it gets me closer to talking him into believing that his armor will take even longer because I'm redesigning it, meaning he'll bother me less for a while, I'll keep at it.

"Don't really care," he manages to say after a moment. "Fine. Whatever." This either means that he's learned to bend to my will, like he should've long ago, or that he actually found my argument (that is, questions) to be genuinely convincing. I'm not sure I believe either. It's also possible he really doesn't care—but he has an opinion about everything, so this is especially implausible.

Anyway, with his face all introspective and sulking like that, I can't just not say something. "It won't take that much longer than it would if I used your old design," I tell him. Aw, dammit. "I promise I'll make it worthwhile." Why do I say these things?

"Your, what's it you call him, boyfriend, has been around a lot," is all he says in response. "Kid's damn annoying," he adds on, probably because he was beginning to sound a little to observant and it was about time he complained about something again.

"You know that he's really not that much younger than you," I tell him, "right? I mean, he's definitely not a _kid_..."

"Sure he is," he says. "Acts like it."

"Then you're a _baby_," I tell him, sticking my tongue out. There is no better reward to a morning of hard work (because, yes, I've finally gotten back to waking up in the mornings) than getting Raditz all riled up.

"Then you are yet inside your mother's womb!" he shouts at me. The one thing I miss about him having a tail is seeing it whip around behind him when he takes my jokes way too seriously. It was cute.

But I don't lose at these things, see. I've got a reputation to hold up. "Fine, but say hello to your father's balls for me!"

_Ha_. That'll stop him.

"Your culture is fucked up," he mutters. I think it's his way of admitting to losing. He glances to one side of the room and upward, eyes following something invisible on the ceiling. "About that kid," he says. "Why do you put up with him?"

"A better question," I cross my arms—I cannot believe he had the nerve to ask that—"is why I put up with you."

"I ain't about to question that," he says.

"Well, for one thing, he doesn't make fun of me," I tell him, "and he's sweet, and handsome."

"You like the messy long hair, then," he says, preening his own. I'll ignore that one. "Interesting list," he finally adds after a while. "From what I've seen, you don't deserve not to be made fun of," yeah, there's that stupid big grin, "nor do you deserve somebody sweet."

It's probably true, but who can blame Yamcha? I'm irresistible. "My flaws are totally worth the benefits of dating me," I tell him.

"Yes," he says, looking very much like he's trying to look like he's trying not to look at me that way he does, "benefits."

"Anyway," I start again, readjusting my arms so that they cover the lowest part of my shirt collar, to hide my cleavage, because his stare is unnerving. "Did you miss the part where he's been working his ass off ever since you showed up to make sure that you don't hurt me?"

I feel his big hands on me before the rush of icy wind from him moving so fast, his eyes and teeth gleaming as his fingers lace behind my neck, thumbs resting on my cheekbones. "See how well he's doing with that," he whispers. Every time he gets this close I worry that he's actually going to snap my neck—I see this glimmer of realization pass over him like he notices every time he does this to me that he could kill me, easily. What I can't see is where he stows the thought away—"for later"?

"Will he be angry?" Raditz asks. I'm caught by surprise so I'm sure I look totally confused by the question. He clarifies, "I get the impression he thinks you're all his. What'll he do when he sees, huh?" for emphasis, his fingers twitch, like he expects violence to come of it. I open my mouth because this really isn't the kind of thing I want to discuss now, when I don't even know— "If you're gonna keep breaking down every time we get close to fucking," he mutters, "I ain't gonna be able to take it a lot longer." I don't know what he means by this, but it gives me the shivers. "So talk. Now. Figure your shit out. This is your problem and you ain't exactly giving off the impression you wanna solve it."

Because I don't. The one thing I'll let sit on the table until it solves itself.

"You want me to choose?" I ask, gripping for some way to—I don't know, to form things into a coherent question. Normally when I'm trying to work something out I write down the problem so I don't get distracted. And since the cost of being distracted right now seems high...

"Don't give a damn about him one way or the other," he growls. "I see you can juggle us just fine, save the one thing." I don't know...how to answer. He just keeps looking at me. "You're like some kind of queen, right?" he says. "So who gives a damn how many people you fuck?" Then he pauses. "Well, granted you don't coddle the weak offspring. Or are you barren? I hear you and him screwing often enough but you say you've never had a..."

All right, I can't take this. I'm starting to feel lightheaded. I think he notices (what clued him in—my eyes threatening to roll all the way back, or my legs collapsing out from underneath me?) because he grabs hold of me before I fall, one big, broad arm around my shoulders and one around the small of my back. "I'm not _barren_," I finally say, "I just don't want _kids_."

This seems satisfactory to him, as he nods with a dazed expression, and in my current state I am content to assume that he now thinks that human women have the ability to prevent themselves from becoming pregnant by sheer force of will, or maybe just that Yamcha gives me a good solid punch to the uterus every now and then. On second thought, I actually don't want to think about what he might be assuming. But whatever—I'll fill him in later.

"So," he says. He still hasn't let go of me, but I'm guessing it's less because he wants to be cuddly and more because he's just forgotten that he's still holding me, "What's your problem, then?"

"If it's not abundantly clear," I tell him, feeling my wits come back to me slowly, "I don't want to _cheat _on my _boyfriend_."

"Huh," is all he says, finally letting go of me, followed at length by, "You don't?"

"No!" I kick my chair, and it halfheartedly wobbles across the floor.

"Don't seem like it," he notes quietly.

"Well, he'll leave me if he finds out," I tell him, "and I just know that if we actually have sex I'm going to babble about it and that'll be the end!" I've been nervous since Yamcha started showing up more—that I'll say something I shouldn't, now that I talk to him more regularly and we discuss more than just the biggest highlights of the week.

He glances at the ceiling again. "If that's true," he says, his voice even lower, "and you wanna keep him," my head's reeling trying to figure out if he's going to kill him, or threaten me, or—"then tell me right now to leave."

"I am _not _playing this—" I start to shout, and he claps his hand over my mouth.

"I try to do you a fucking favor..." he mutters. "Either kick me in the balls, or..." he trails off, his eyes darting over me like he's going to find some sort of answer. I have no idea what the he'll he's talking about, if he means that if I'm not gonna screw him I might as well kick him in the balls, or... I consider doing it out of spite, just because he's acting so stupid.

"Look, Raditz," I hiss back, "just because I haven't fucked you doesn't mean I don't _want _to—" His eyes are wide with horror and I hear a choking noise and footsteps pounding—away from where I'm standing. The door hovers half-open. "Shit," I mouth.

"I tried to warn you," he says. "The whelp has been teaching me how to sense presences and I felt him come into the house and then down the stairs."

"You could have been a little clearer, you bastard!" I scream, rage bubbling up inside me. This whole thing was a setup—he—just wanted me to break up with Yamcha, or—or why else wouldn't he have stopped it? Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I should've...there would've been...if I could... But now Yamcha knows. Shit.

"You're welcome," he growls, turning on his heel and marching out.

...

I don't really...don't really remember what I've been doing the—the past couple hours. I have a bunch of drawings in front of me but I bet when I get over the hangover and drag myself out of bed tomorrow I'll realize they're bullshit.

See, 'cause, work-related stress I can handle okay. At worst I just gotta...sleep on it and...y'know...brainstorm.

But if I ever learned one thing in my time at college it's that when somebody decide they don't like me, _me,_ Bulma Briefs, it fuckin' hurts. What more could they ask for? Shit. And my parents never exactly helped me figure out I can't always do whatever the hell I want. When she knows I'm feeling awful, my mom brings me a tub of chocolate ice cream. When I was sixteen, I told Dad I was going on a trip to look for artifacts and listed off some shit I needed. He said, there's the bikes, there's the planes, there's the guns, be safe, honey, call me if you find anything nice to look at.

Yeah, I been dumped before.

But this time it's my own damn fault.

An' I've always known I don't handle this emotional shit well. I mean, not something like _this_.

There's no _way _this fucker was worth losing Yamcha. If Raditz comes back down here and sees me like this, he ain't gonna run to the store real quick to get me chocolates and he ain't gonna say something cute and he might just break my legs and laugh at me and walk back away flipping me off.

The inevitable hiccups crawl up my throat and I look at the array of shit that's laying over my papers—tissues and empty beer bottles, mostly, plus the scouter.

Oooh.

I could use some laughs right now.

The wire is a quick fix I could take care of while I'm asleep, so it don't matter whether I can quite see straight at present. I set it over my ear and after a bit of fuzzy noise, a voice comes through. "I wonder which bitch is contacting us this time?" Vegeta says.

"You're the bitches," I answer, already beginning to giggle. "Son's gonna...gonna fuck your asses."

"I like her," Nappa says. "She's all fiery. And _drunk_."

"Who's this you're talking about?" Vegeta asks, and I know that he knows that I know that...uh...

"We wished 'im back," I specify, and then figure they wouldn't get it, "with the dragonballs, I mean, 'cause, you know how Raditz killed him and all."

"Raditz," Vegeta mutters, and I can sorta like hear him grinning. "Are you trying to say that this 'Son' is Kakarrot?"

"Sure," I say, "and he's super strong now. And fuckin' _hot_...but like, you know, married, so..."

"What was that you said about him having been dead?" Vegeta asks, sounding much more pleasant at me than the usual. Aw, he prolly pities me. Well, I'll take it where I can get it, and when he talks like that he sounds like a little less of an ass.

"Sure he was," I assure him, "but you know, we ain't never made that wish before, so Shenlong granted it."

"You said something about dragonballs," he adds. What a helpful guy, I almost forgot what I was saying.

"Yeah, we gathered 'em and Shenlong granted the wish and all, which is good, 'cause Raditz wanted his tail and all and for a sec I thought he was gonna steal 'em or take the wish or whatever but I guess it don't matter now that Son's back alive," I rattle off.

"Wishes?" I hear Nappa say. "Maybe we should actually go there, Vegeta. You know, instead of leaving Raditz to rot like you said."

"I could do with a wish or two," Vegeta sounds awful happy and I'm starting to feel not so great about this in my belly. "Yes, it might actually be worth our time. Let's change course—Freeza won't notice."

"He practically expected us to die on this trip anyway," Nappa adds. "The fucker. He should know better by now."

Now my belly feels a very distinct kind of not good and I pick up one of the beer cans and crush it up close to my face. "Sorry," I say while it crinkles, "you're breaking up, uh," and then I take off the scouter real quick and cut the wire again because I think I had it like that for the same reason my gut feels awful.

Well, that was pretty funny, I guess. That Nappa guy sounds like a hoot. But still the air is somber, and maybe it's 'cause I realized that I'm outta beer and in the mood for something else.

Normally I don't do this, but I figure this is an exception. Right? I mean I'm not usually a heavy drinker. But like I said...

Damned tall, cocky exception and his fucking up my perfectly fine life.

I stumble back up the stairs without much incident after stuffing the scouter away. When I'm almost at the kitchen I hear the distinct sound of a glass rolling across the table and shattering on the floor. "Shit," says a mumbly voice that sounds about how I feel.

"Fucker," I say when I walk in, dancing around the broken glass gracelessly. I pull down a glass and then yank a bottle out of the cabinet, and some soda out of the fridge, and all the while Raditz watches me from his chair. Assumedly because it'll look badass, I put the empty glass in the middle of the table before trying to pop the caps off of both of the bottles at the same time, realizing vaguely that they're screw-top both of 'em, but fuck those bottles, that's their own damn fault.

"Lemme do it," he says, grabbing the bottles out of my hand. With his thumbs he snaps the tops off of each (see, I knew it was possible; he's just lucky) and dumps 'em both into the glass until it's full. "Okay," he says, shoving the glass at me, "your turn."

"My what?" I've already got the glass in my hands.

"Yeah," he says, "you know, you know how it goes. Right? How you drink half it and ask me a question and I gotta answer and I drink the rest an', you know, ask you a question, an' all that."

"Never played it," I say, and it occurs to me he's just about as drunk as I am when I see an empty bottle of something my father serves at late-night business meetings when he really wants more funding. I mean 'cause it's strong, not just 'cause it's good and expensive, though it's those too, I guess. I figure with Raditz's size and metabolism, that much of that stuff has him feeling about the same as I do after a few too many beers, right?

"Shit," he says, "well then have your turn."

I gulp down half and it burns deliciously. He stares with sleepy eyes and I look at the empty bottle again. "I know why I'm doing this," I clunk the glass down between us and a little spills out onto my hands, "but why are you? Getting sloshed, I mean. That's my question." I try to make it sound mean but it don't come across.

"Y're trying to make it easy for me to hate you," he says after a space of time, "which is making it damn hard for me to hate you."

"Huh?" I say.

"Naw, you can't ask me nothin' now; it's my turn," he says, polishing the glass off and pouring more. "Why do you keep this shit alcohol in your house?"

"Sayssa guy who thinks burning skin smells good," I say. "You just don't got taste."

"In some places, that's a compliment," he snickers.

"Like hell," I say.

"Naw, you're right, it ain't quite like that." He pushes the glass at me.

"Damn straight," I say, and take my turn. "Why's it you wanna hate me?" 'Cause he wouldn't answer before, and I've gotta know.

His smile dies on his face and it's right back to the baggy eyes. "Aw, I ain't talkin' about it," he says. "Not that."

"Why not?" I say, and he looks at me with mean eyes. "What? I got my question still."

"It's the rules," he scratches his head, "you can't _make_ 'em talk about why they're at it in the first place," his shoulder tilts toward the alcohol, so I figure "at it" must mean drinking, "'less they particularly wanna, I s'pose but who wants t' talk about shit like that anyway? Besides," his fingers drum on the table, "I guess you're smart enough to figure it out for yerself."

Try to do just that—muse, however foggily, on why the hell he'd want to hate me when he clearly wants to bone me. Lessee...I think it has something to do with something I was doing earlier. Who was I talking to earlier? Oh yeah, the other Saiyans. I'm about to tell him how I talked to them and they're coming to Earth now but then I remember he thought they were coming all along and figure it ain't the best time to tell him they were gonna leave him instead of coming and—

Oh yeah...them. "'Cause if Son don't beat 'em I gotta die," I say out loud, and dimly I think that I'm glad I'm drunk while realizing this. "So it'd be easier if you don't care," I add on, mostly for my benefit.

"Aw, shit, woman," he says, "you ruined it."

"You ruined it first," I say.

"Naw, you before that," he insists, now leaning across the table, his elbows propped on it and his head propped in his hands.

"Well, you killed Son," I say.

"But you brought me back and made me wear pants," he argues, "before that."

"But you came here in the first place."

"Because Kakarrot got sent here."

"Because," I assure him, "of your father's balls."

We both pound the table in laughter and everything topples over when Raditz cracks it in half. I wonder vaguely what my parents'll say when they come downstairs to see this abandoned here, 'cause I sure as hell am not cleaning it up. I think my mother will ask how she's going to serve us our breakfast. My father will say to me, here's the phone, honey, tell them to bring in a new table. He'll ask how my research on the ship is going. Mom will ask again if I've slept with Raditz yet. Probably I'll lie. Probably she'll know. Probably neither of them will give a damn.

"Mine," he says, "got a much cleaner record."

"That so?" I ask.

"Prove me wrong," he says in that stupidly pleasant-sounding purr of his.

I don't turn down a challenge.


	19. I, 19: Gohan

NOTE: Before you ask, I just had to torture Raditz like that. I was going to leave what happened in the last chapter alone, but...nah. It seemed too easy. XD

...

Piccolo's not very happy, and I guess I can't blame him.

Um, I don't know exactly what happened, but it turns out that Bulma somehow accidentally told the Saiyans about the dragonballs and so now they're definitely coming sooner than they would have. Kami told us that the time that he's worried about isn't any closer, though...I guess that's good. But it's still really weird. Piccolo is especially worried, says it's strange to him that the Saiyans finding out about the dragonballs and coming sooner wouldn't affect things... When Kami talked to us he said that he was surprised too.

Training with Daddy is going really great, though. He's so happy about how strong I've gotten, and even happier that I'm excited to learn more. I don't know if he knows how scared I am, of actually fighting these guys. He says if there's anybody he can teach the things he's learned, it's me.

Sometimes Daddy asks me about Raditz. He seems confused and worried that I'm not all mad at him. I haven't told Daddy yet about how I'm teaching Raditz how to sense things. I never thought I would do it, but I even sneak away from Daddy sometimes, to still help Raditz with learning it. I don't think he likes Raditz at all—I mean, I don't think he has to, because think of all that awful stuff he did. But before we left after wishing Daddy back, Bulma pulled me over to the side and whispered something to me. She told me, that maybe, _maybe _Raditz might not fight beside the other Saiyans and maybe, _maybe _she could convince him to help us. She said something about his eyes crinkling when she mentions me to him, like in secret he kind of likes me.

I didn't want to say anything to Raditz about it when I saw him again, the first time I snuck away while Daddy was sleeping to teach him about how he can curl power up inside his stomach to hide from being sensed. But I thought, if Bulma is right, if when she mentions me his eyes crinkle, I can find out if eyes-crinkling is really the way to tell if he likes somebody. 'Cause, I think he kind of likes her. Sometimes he just mutters things about her and when I ask what he means he just tells me I wouldn't get it.

So when I saw him again, I thought I'd just say a little bit of something having to do with Bulma and see what his eyes did.

But, he beat me to it. The first thing he told me was that he had an awful headache, because he drank too much the night before. It's weird, because I've never had something like that happen to me. If I drink too much the night before, I just have to pee really bad in the morning... Then he said some more stuff that didn't make much sense to me at all, about "couldn't get it up" and he still kept saying the "drank too much" thing and I guess he and Bulma were going to do something or another but something having to do with those things meant that they couldn't so he was really mad _and _had a really bad headache.

When I told him I didn't know what he was talking about, he told me that there was no way he was gonna let me turn out like my daddy.

Well, of course I'm not. I don't think Daddy knows how to read, for one thing.

I thought of what Bulma said to me, about him maybe being on our side, and I told him how if the Saiyans beat us it doesn't really matter because I won't turn out like anything.

Then he got even angrier and told me to shut up.

I think maybe Bulma is right.

...

But the problem is, right now Piccolo's not very happy _and _Yamcha's not very happy. The same day Raditz told me about all that confusing stuff, Yamcha showed up really _really _mad. He said now he has even more of a reason to want to beat Raditz up, and he kind of got a little crazy and backed my daddy up against a rock and told him he _has _to teach him the things he learned while he was dead.

So that's what they're doing right now, Daddy and Yamcha. He told me I can come and try to learn too, but I'm a tiny bit afraid of what Yamcha will do if I say something bad. He seems like he really hates Raditz, but he gets mad when somebody says something about Bulma too, but, I thought he liked Bulma and...it's confusing and I'm pretty sure I'm stronger than him but I don't really wanna fight him if I don't have to. And anyway, what would he do to me if he found out I kind of don't mind Raditz? And if he found out I've been teaching him stuff?

Then Daddy starts walking toward me. It looks like him and Yamcha are taking a break, and Yamcha stalks off somewhere only for Tenshinhan to call out to him. He stops and goes toward him and they start talking, and it makes me smile just seeing Yamcha a little bit happier. "Gohan," Daddy says to me. He rubs his hand in my hair. "How come you don't want to learn those techniques with Yamcha?" With the one hand still in my hair, he scratches his head. "You know, because I'd rather teach 'em once than twice!"

I kind of shrug a little, trying to think of something that's sort of true but also that my dad will like so he won't bother me about it. "I want to try to make up my own techniques," I tell him. I think maybe Piccolo could help me with it, so...maybe I really will do it. His eyes light up and he gives me this big grin.

"Yeah!" he says, "Good idea, Gohan! Tell me if you need any help, okay?" I nod, and he ruffles my hair again, and his hand kind of stops right there. "Say," he looks over it, "do you think you maybe want a haircut or something? I know your mom likes keeping your hair looking nice, and right now it looks sort of like..." he trails off, and I think I know what he's gonna say. "Plus, you know, it might get less in your way when you're fighting.

I shake my head. "I'm okay," I say, and try to smile at him the same way he was smiling at me, "and since when did you ever care about what Mother wants me to do?"

He laughs at that one. "I guess you're right. You're getting real smart, you know? Even without reading all those books."

"I have some good teachers," I say back to him. And he doesn't need to know any more than that. Then I realize something. "Daddy," I say, "did the guy who taught you the techniques you're showing Yamcha say it was okay for you to do that?" He seems confused so I say, "Well, you know, like, you're not allowed to copy things out of books. Are you allowed to copy from the teacher?"

He scratches his head, "You know what, Kaio actually did talk to me about that. He said normally he wouldn't allow it, you know, but then he said, if there's anybody I think can stand them, I can teach them. He said, we're gonna need it."

"He knows about the Saiyans?" I ask.

Daddy shrugs. "I guess. He seemed really worried about something or another. Didn't wanna talk about it, though."

Uh-oh. That might be really bad. Daddy grins at me. "Well, I guess you'd better get working on those new techniques, huh?" I nod. "You're growing up to be a really great fighter Gohan, you know that? When I was little like you I wasn't hardly as strong as you are now."

"Raditz says maybe it's 'cause I'm a 'halfling,'" I blurt, and then I realize I probably shouldn't have by how Daddy's face kind of twists up in a funny way, so I keep going real fast, "but you're right, I should go ask Piccolo for some help now!" and then before he can say anything else that'll make me accidentally say something else I shouldn't say, I run off.

...

Over in the distance I see Daddy teaching Yamcha, and even Tenshinhan and Kuririn, the stuff he learned while he was dead. When I'm watching them, I kind of wish I would have decided to learn too, but maybe it's better this way. Piccolo didn't wanna learn anything from my daddy, and Chaotzu isn't doing it either 'cause Tenshinhan told him he can't because he's too worried that the Kaio-something technique will put too much strain on him since he's so small, or...or something like that.

"If you want," Piccolo kind of grunts at me, and I guess he saw me looking over there, "I can teach you my Makankosapo technique."

"I thought that was your special secret one," I say to him. "Right? My daddy only saw it the one time when it didn't work against Raditz, that's what you said."

His eyes narrow on me like I shouldn't have said that, like I spoiled something by saying it. "It's true," he says after a little bit, "I invented it for the sole purpose of destroying your father. But it seems increasingly unlikely I won't have the chance," now he sounds really upset, in the sort of way that Piccolo does, by getting really quiet, "not if the Saiyans get to him first."

"Or if they get to you first," I say, 'cause, I mean, 'cause Daddy is a bit stronger than Piccolo, and...

"Or me," he pretty much only mouths it, and he's looking me straight in the eye. "So you'd prefer I not, then? That I let it die with me?"

"Well, um, I mean, I'm not gonna kill my daddy with it," I say. Piccolo moves around a little bit, shuffling his weight from one foot onto the other. It looks like it's a lot harder than it should be, but that's because the other day Bulma brought some heavy clothes for everybody. She told me I can't have heavy clothes 'cause I'm not done growing yet, though. But Piccolo's cape must be _real _heavy. I bet if he dropped it on the ground it would make a big old crater.

"At this point," he says, "any Saiyan will do, but preferably one of the two Raditz has mentioned so frequently." I nod a little, but, it's still kind of confusing...when he started training me, all Piccolo would talk about was how he was gonna beat Daddy after this. Now, though, he seems more and more worried...he seems older. I guess he _is _older. I guess I'm older, too. But it seems like Piccolo sees that I'm confused because he says, "Kami's feeling of approaching death has not faded in the slightest." Then, "If I die, I refuse to simply cease to exist."

I don't know what he means, but I nod. "But we'll bring you back, Mister Piccolo," I tell him, "with the dragonballs, if you—oh." That's right, everybody says if Piccolo dies, then Kami dies, and the other way around, and if that happens, the dragonballs are gone forever. I don't really...don't really wanna think about it. But...Piccolo is trying to do something nice, and...well, I would be doing what he wants, right, if I learn it? It feels like the right thing to do...it's kind of nice to think that...that if he doesn't make it, then, well, then there'll still be that little bit of him. Maybe I won't make it, either, but...maybe then we'll both see each other in the afterlife? Piccolo is...Piccolo is my best friend. I don't wanna imagine what could happen otherwise, and I'm kind of worried because of Daddy saying Piccolo used to be evil, and I think when they die, evil people go someplace else that nice people don't. But wouldn't they know that Piccolo isn't evil anymore? They have to, right? "I won't let you die," I finally tell him.

"I doubt it will be so easy, kid," he says to me, then, "Well, take my offer or leave it."

"Teach me," I tell him. By the end of all this, by the time the Saiyans come, I'm gonna show 'em. I'm gonna keep Piccolo from dying. They're just gonna think I'm a little kid, but they won't know it, how many people I've been learning things from. They're gonna be as surprised as Raditz was about sensing energy. There's gonna be my Daddy, with all of his training from the afterlife, and boy is he _strong_. There's gonna be Yamcha and Tenshinhan and Kuririn with all the same tricks up their sleeve as my Daddy. There's gonna be Piccolo, and I bet after he's gotten used to all that weight, he'll be close to catching up with Daddy, and he has all his own techniques that'll be surprises for them. And maybe, _maybe_ there'll be Raditz, too, fighting alongside us.

"Then we will retire to a different area," Piccolo says. He doesn't want everybody else to see, I bet. Then they'll wish they could learn it from him, too. He kind of tilts his head in a direction away from everybody else and we start walking that way real slowly, the weight on Piccolo's shoulders so heavy he's having trouble walking. He looks at me and smirks when he sees me looking at his cape, and I can't help grinning back, because I feel so happy, because I think maybe he doesn't feel like I'm that much of a burden anymore compared to that heavy, heavy weight.


	20. I, 20: Raditz

NOTE: Ooh, I'm excited! X3 I can't wait! But for now, I shall savor the fact that I know what's gonna happen, and you don't. Mwahaha.

...

Before, I said that when time passed it felt like the same damn thing over and over again.

This past year has been the complete fucking opposite.

First thing. Kakarrot's brat? Started showing up asking me to teach him shit in return for him telling me about how to sense people. Fine, whatever, but it was a little weird. I asked him, didn't it bother him that I killed his dear daddy and would do it again if I could? You know what he said? That the Namekian is the same way. Yeah. That's his reason for putting up with me. Damn kid continues to look more and more like me every time I see him, that hair getting longer and himself getting taller real gradually. It's...weird between us. I mean, I ain't so surprised, because I'm used to this sort of thing, but I never woulda guessed a kid would go into it—think he just pretends he don't have no reason to hate me, or like I've gotten better, but I'm damn certain he knows I haven't. Being able to deceive yourself is maybe the most important skill for getting by.

And, hell, he might just think of me as family. Once or twice, he's thrown me off asking some question, saying it ain't the kind of thing that neither his traitor father nor his Namekian friend would understand. He wonders about Saiyans, he wonders about deep philosophical shit someone his age don't have the right to be wondering about, but there it is, I guess. Kid's got some kind of crazy thoughts about right and wrong, the sort that ain't healthy where I'm from, and I wonder how it happens that he's got such opinions on what a person oughtta do (or ought not do) but still goes on going out of his way to chatter with murderers when he's got a perfectly fine, _just, righteous _daddy. I'd say he's surpassed his father mentally. I ain't surprised in the slightest. Anyway, neither of 'em gets it, gets what it means to live out there. And neither of 'em gets being a Saiyan either, or they'd like the thought of it.

So he'd sneak out from beneath Kakarrot's nose, beneath his friends' noses, to come train with me—some nights just to sit around, if I was still too injured to fight. Bulma's finally got around to making me some damn fine armor, with insert pockets for those thin, heavy weights she made, so I can take 'em out or keep 'em in. I've gone past Planet Vegeta's gravity, from when I lived there, back in the day, before the meteors. Gone far past that, in fact. I always ask her what Kakarrot's up to. She always tells me. More'n I can handle, for now at least.

And by the way. We finally _did _fuck. Me and Bulma, I mean. About damn time. When we were about to the once, she ended up being too damn drunk, and don't believe what anybody else tells you. Then she spent a good long while weeping and whining over that Yamcha—never seen somebody care so much for somebody that ain't family. Or else if it wasn't caring, guess I never seen somebody so good at pretending like they care. But I think she really did care about him, her friends, everybody, 'cause, damn, you know what I did that finally got me some? Shit, but I shouldn't even think about it, too stupid.

Aw, hell, fine. She was there in the kitchen with her mother all fawning over her like some fragile thing. I shooed the woman out (and out she went, giggling, and it was then I started worrying she ain't so stupid as I'd thought) and what was Bulma doing but sniffling over some picture of her and that guy with big-ass grins on their faces—a young Kakarrot, too, and some others I ain't seen around, but the two of them all close together and grabby. So I snatch the thing out of her fingers to get a better look at it, and I ask her, with a big ol' grin because I figure that'll help things out, whether he got all weak-kneed over her before or after she became such a bitch, or if she's always been one. 'Course she has the usual slew of insults and I wait 'em out. Then she's just staring at me. Asks me didn't I ever get all fucked up and heartbroken over something, didn't I ever love anything? Well, shit, of course I did, I told her. (Which was the wrong thing to say given that I didn't especially wanna talk about it.) Her eyes get all big in that way that makes me say more'n I want to and I'm telling her how my home got destroyed, everything got destroyed, by the stupid fucking meteor shower that blew straight through the planet while everyone was on it, while I shoulda been on it—but being the stupid kid I was, I was still halfway across the galaxy, maybe at that very moment taking a pit stop and spawning one or five little things that surely wouldn't have turned out quite like Kakarrot's brat, or likely didn't turn out at all. May be somebody decided to buy the planet not years later, and everybody got blown away anyway.

'Course by then, by the time I get to talking about what it was like to be a Saiyan, out killing in packs like we did as kids, getting home, the evening fires for anybody who died, the stories, stuffing food into our faces until we fell asleep in it and the adults dragging us back inside.

And then, I tell her, it was all gone. Shit, how old was I? Not even a man.

Back then, she said, when that happened, she would've been learning how to do math. Back then, she said, her father gave her kits to build little trinkets. And when she was the age that I'd been when it happened? More of the same, she said, but the only difference was the math was harder and the trinkets didn't come from kits. And me with millions already under my belt—in deaths, I mean; fewer in the other way. Told her I don't regret it, never will. She gives me this sad look—guess maybe she was trying to put it out of her mind up until then.

I say, shit, I know, she prolly ain't used to putting up with somebody like me, but it ain't exactly nothin' I'm gonna change. She says that ain't it. Says, Kakarrot's killed lots of people, and that stops whatever words I was gonna say from coming outta my mouth. Says they were "bad guys," but, hell, I guess the bastard does have it in him. It's...an odd feeling, that it's just his fucked up ideas of right and wrong getting in the way of him being almost a real Saiyan.

Bulma said to me, that's not it—not entirely, at least.

From there she spent almost a half-hour describing to me just how scared she'd been when I killed Kakarrot. It freaked me the fuck out that she brought it up at all—there was a reason I didn't wanna talk about it, about anything more than the "what the hell did you do to my tail?" talk we arready had. She reminded me she threw the knife at me, like I needed reminding—that little slice over my forehead and down my cheek, right over my eye, looks like it's gonna be there as a scar forever—healed up too slow, with no healing tank around. (That was then—by now she's got a pretty good imitation of one up and running. Not the same, but not bad.) I don't like being reminded that something as weak as her could off me at the right moment. When I got knocked unconscious, she said, she was ready to cut through my spine with that big knife. Had the knife sitting against my neck, was just mustering up the willpower to do it. She looked at me and waited with those teared-over eyes while she said it, just waited for me to say something back.

Of course she was gonna, I told myself, and she shoulda done it, too. I would have. I think.

She said she didn't wanna have to do it again, have to think about it. By then she'd taken the picture back outta my hands and was smoothing it over the table, the little wrinkles I'd put in it by grabbing it. She said she didn't want there to be any more reasons for her to have to think about having to off me. I knew where she was going right then, but I couldn't say nothin', couldn't speak up and let her know that ain't possible. My words were all...stuck in my throat, razor-sharp and slicing away there to get away without coming out my mouth. She said to me, "Raditz, promise me you won't kill any of us." Looked at the picture. "Not Yamcha. Not Son. Not Piccolo or Gohan or any of the otheres. Not me. None of us."

Well, shit, this is stupid, but...fuck. I agreed to it. I don't know even know what part of me was doing the thinking, but I think I've narrowed it down to three possibilities. I put my fist on my chest and said, "None of you. I swear."

And I guess that's what she was holding out for.

It wasn't bad, y'know, the sex, considering she's a weak little human. But afterwards, when she said with the slyest little grin on her face, "Don't forget your promise," I couldn't help feeling I'd been tricked, somehow.

But, well. I could get used to it.

...

Some other shit went down in this past year's time. Everybody was worried the Saiyans would be coming sooner—turns out _somebody_ had called up Vegeta and Nappa on the scouter while drunk. The humans, I guess, all tried to get Kakarrot to teach them his secret techniques he learned from wherever the hell he went. How do I know? The brat told me.

He told me, once, about the Yamcha guy trying to use this one technique, which, if what he heard is true, doubles your power, or something. (Shit, I was almost tempted to be tempted to ask him to learn it to teach it to me.) He said he got partway through powering up and then he stopped, and almost fainted—he could barely move for days, the kid told me, and his skin was an angry red with boils and blisters. He guessed his innards were like that too.

Naturally, I got a peek at that part, when they hurried him to one of Bulma's healing tanks, but I didn't hang around—didn't want to be there when he regained consciousness. Don't get me wrong, I think I could beat the guy down in a blink, but, fuck...there's something a little freaky about knowing he was learning to use this monstrous technique so he could get revenge on me. (Not sure he knows there's more'n one person to blame for somebody winning over someone's girl. Two, to be exact.) I don't wanna see what might happen if he gets it right—if he can get it right—if he decides to use it on me the second I cross his path again. Kinda guy who willingly kills hisself trying to get something done? That's the kinda guy I don't wanna run across. You gotta be fucking crazy not to wanna live, right? My life's the one thing I'll do anything—I mean _anything_—to keep. Honor be damned. I'll leave that pride shit to Vegeta.

The whelp hasn't learned the technique, though he said Kakarrot spent so long bothering him about it, sayin' the others couldn't handle it but he could. Kid divulged to me he don't think he needs it, thinks he's onto something else. Don't know if he's right—doubt he can know, either—but this is almost as worrisome to me as what Mister Jealous has done. What keeps it from being more worried is that I doubt the kid would go out of his way to hurt me, not now. I think he must know what I said to Bulma...the bitch, telling him what I said without asking me if she could.

I asked him what it is, that makes him feel that way. He says he don't know, only something like heavy rocks and hot lava started roiling around inside him since he realized how certain the Namekian is that he's gonna die, since he started seeing this guy's face when he talks with this planet's god. Asked if I ever felt it, this rocks-and-lava business, if it's a Saiyan thing. I said the closest thing I got to that was when I found out everybody on Vegeta died, almost puked from the sensation of melted metal burning up through the inside of my throat. Or maybe that _was_ the vomit burning up through the inside of my throat. Huh.

But, crazy techniques or not, everybody's been wearing the weighted clothes. I been working myself half to death, then throwing myself in the healing tank. It's kind of disgusting, really, when I think about it—'cause it's the sort of thing that ass Vegeta would do if he thought one of us was gonna show him up, or something. I try to minimize the possibility that anything I do might make me seem like Vegeta, so I do it in a totally different way than he would. See, he don't got a single passionate bone in his body, and most especially not _that _bone. I've spent enough time around him—I'd know. I'd know that grin on anybody and he's never worn it once in the time I've been around him; nor, I found, after a few quiet discussions, has Nappa seen any indication he's inclined to do anything but jack off all on his lonesome. Weird guy.

Right. Whatever. That ain't me, not at all.

Bulma was skittish about it at first, something about being worried about some amount of weight that sounded heavy to her falling onto her if I collapsed onto her after.

So what? So we get creative with ways we can fuck without risk of me falling onto her—and trust me, there's more to it than just letting her on top; naw, that'd be too easy, wouldn't it? (Not that it ain't nice, mind you.) And let's just say that when you combine her thing for puzzles and shit like that, and my thing for, you know, fucking, well...the result is something beautiful.

Not that life ain't without its problems. Sometimes she looks at me in that way, in that way she's trying to understand the magnitude of millions or billions of lives. And sometimes she catches me wondering about that knife, about had I not taped up her foot that one day, about were my teeth just a little straighter, were my hair a little nicer, were I not so fucking desperate that I had all those stupid thoughts about her, and they changed how I treated her an' how she saw me, whether I liked it or not—if any of that—if she liked me less—well, shit, I'd be dead and dead again. And what made the line there, and what if there's somethin' that could move it? If she decides she don't like me. If she comes to her senses and realizes how many people and things she could avenge just by offing me. She said she had the knife resting there against my neck and she didn't know what stopped her, only that something did.

And I didn't tell her, but anybody who's ever tried to kill me, I make sure to take care of—one way or another. Naturally—that's just how things are. If you try to kill a guy and fail, well, you oughtta expect to die. Leaving her alive stands my hair up on-end if I think about it too much. And I think she knows.

And that guilt that flashes across her eyes anytime she says, "But what if the Saiyans..." and stops talking—I know she's thinking about it. She don't trust my promise entirely. Guess it's only fair.

...

She'll trust me even less, when she finds this out.

I don't like the feeling of leaving just now, not given that it could be Vegeta and Nappa will show up anytime; Gohan keeps talking about the Namekian's worry, his desperation, that the cloud is so vague, that it might be one week, one month, half a year. Part of me needs to be here for it—part of me don't want the least thing to do with it, and, hell, why should I care if I come back and find the place gone? Maybe I won't come back at all. But if that's it, then why would I even... It's that nagging thought, that what if Kakarrot is strong enough and his friends are strong enough that he survives Vegeta? He'll be after me. And besides, if he don't, well, the Earth'll be wiped clean. I tell myself I don't care. Then I think, being able to deceive yourself is maybe the most important skill for getting by, and then I wonder why I thought it, 'cause surely I wasn't deceiving myself, was I? Naw.

I got a bag ready and I don't think she gets the impression I'm actually smart enough to plan things. Normally that ain't so bad a thought—planning never works out anyhow, so I try to avoid it—but I hope it works in my favor this one time. I got a map, and I got an idea of how I can go around to each of these places the fastest. Breezed over 'em, once or twice; walked around, to get an idea of things.

As I pace past Bulma working on sketches in the kitchen, I snatch up a capsule that's been left on the counter and drop it in the bag. I've been keeping my eye on its whereabouts, though her absentminded father has made it difficult, with his constantly moving things to places that don't make sense—the kitchen counter, for instance.

"Where are you going?" she asks. Pours another cup of coffee, crinkles up this latest sheet of paper. "Gohan?" she guesses.

"Yeah," I say.

"It can't be good for him, to always get up at this hour and meet you," she sighs. "He's just a kid. He should just tell Son, and..."

"He can handle it," I argue. Wasn't planning on a conversation, but whatever. "And it ain't my fault Kakarrot is so dense that he can still get away with it."

"Sure," she rolls her eyes. Then she finally looks at me. "What's with the bag?"

"Promised the whelp I'd bring him your mother's damned, uh," I pause, "you know, those round sweet things." Shit, and to think I ever questioned preparing an answer. Dodged that crisis a little narrowly.

"Aw," she grins, "how sweet of you. Here, let me put some in a plastic bag..." she gets up and starts digging through cabinets. "What's with the whole 'being nice' thing?" she asks. "You trying to get on his good side for something? You really think he's going to tell you how Piccolo does that crazy drill thing he told me about last time I saw him? Maka...ka...whatever?"

"Maybe," is all I say, and plaster on my biggest sly grin. I have no idea what the hell she's talking about, but it's probably better than whatever I would've come up with, anyway.

"Well, good luck with that," she drops the cookies in my open hand, and I transfer them to the bag in a way that it ain't apparent I also got maps and stuff in there. "I seriously doubt Gohan would divulge any secret of Piccolo's. But, hell, I won't deny the opportunity to give my nephew cookies." Har har. She thinks she's family arready. Fucking someone a bunch of times don't make 'em family. I tell this to myself a few times to make sure it's very clear to me.

"Got heavier weights in your lab?" I ask.

"Sure do," she's back to the sketches already, swearing when some of the coffee sloshes over onto them. "You know where they are, right?"

"Think so," I say, and start to turn away. Aw, shit. This could be...well, if I ain't coming back, I mean, this might be—if Vegeta and Nappa get here before me—you know—damn— I lean down and snatch up her tongue inside my mouth. When she gives me an appropriately baffled stare, I say, "just getting warmed up for when I come back."

If, I tell myself. If. If I come back. But she don't need to hear it.

She rolls her eyes again and shoves me away in the cute way she does, gets back to work.

Down to the lab I go. From one of her desk drawers, the scouter.

From the other, the radar.

I swing open the window and take off, pressing down my energy as much as I can, like the whelp taught me, and I repeat my wish in my head like it's the only thing keeping me alive.

And, hell—it just may be.


	21. I, 21: Bulma

"Why did you do it?"

I nearly scream but I'm glad I don't when I open my eyes and bolt up, because I come face to face with...er...well...everybody. In particular, Piccolo is standing straight across from me. Ah, just another morning in the Briefs household, right? And you wonder how I manage to sleep soundly.

He's the one who had spoken, and, gods, he looks like if I would have screamed at suddenly being awakened by what looks to me like some kind of intervention crew, by the way they're all staring me down, he probably would have snapped my head off.

"What the hell is going on?" I ask. I think it's a perfectly valid question. Beside Piccolo, on the one side, is Gohan; and beside him, Tenshinhan and, what's his name, Chaotzu. On the other side of him are Son, Kuririn, and Yamcha. My chest jumps a bit—I haven't seen him since we had to rush him to the healing tank. Son said he tried some technique and (with his usual laugh) that apparently his teacher wasn't kidding when he said it was hard on the body. I'm not sure if Son even felt bad about having basically taught Yamcha something that'll kill him if he follows through with it; mostly, now, he keeps wondering why he can pull it off without too much trouble, but the others can't. I didn't hear much else about it, besides Gohan's quick whispered comment that his guess had something to do with him being Saiyan, and that, naturally, Son wanted to hear none of it.

Yamcha's expression is painfully wrathful—I've never seen him so angry, and to see it focused on _me_, well...damn. Piccolo's face, meanwhile, is heavy with worry, and whatever this latest thing is that's going on, I can't say I blame him at least for being concerned over his (or our) impending doom.

"That motherfucker Raditz," Yamcha hisses out.

"He gathered the dragonballs," Kuririn tells me, nervous, with his hands all twitchy and his eyebrows arced high.

"And he made a wish," Son says, in that damn creepy serious voice of his. "And..."

"And I didn't hear it," Gohan says, "but I got near enough to see, he said something, and he...disappeared."

"Did he have a tail?" I ask. Naturally, that's what he'd be wishing for. Disappearing would be...bizarre...but maybe he just rushed away and Gohan didn't catch that part.

The poor distraught kid shakes his head. "I thought it was what he'd wish for," he says. "But he's just...gone. His _ki _isn't anywhere on Earth, not that I can tell at least."

"Nor I," Piccolo adds.

"Shit," I say, looking over all of them. Tenshinhan just stands there giving me this look like I've betrayed all of them, like he never really trusted me much in the first place—a bit like what Piccolo's doing, but quieter, and, therefore, scarier.

"'Shit' is right," Yamcha says. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"I didn't know," I tell him. "I...had no idea he was doing anything. I should have...damn," by now I'm just hissing it under my breath. It explains him kissing me like he did, and also that bag he was carrying around—fucking dirty Saiyan liar. But where did he go? "Maybe he's just suppressing his energy and he's still around?"

Son seems shocked at the idea. "He couldn't control his _ki _at all," he assures me. "There's no way he could just do that."

"He can," Gohan whispers. The others look at him with varying levels of surprise; Piccolo is the least affected, standing there like he was expecting to hear it. Maybe he knew, or maybe—what's it Raditz called him, a Namekian?—maybe Namekians are just masters of looking like they don't give a damn. I think, though, that he's genuinely not surprised. Yamcha, on the other hand, looks like he might be ready to strangle the kid—well, I mean, not really, because of the many things a guy like Yamcha can do, I don't think harming one of his best friend's children is one of them—and Son only a margin less bothered. Shit, I didn't know it was such a secret...

"What do you mean, Gohan?" Son asks. "This ain't a very good time to joke around, y'know?"

"I'm not joking," he says, rotating the wristbands of his outfit carefully. His voice is quivering but he's clearly trying to sound strong: "I taught him."

"Dammit, Gohan!" Son shouts, and it looks like he's holding something back. I don't think any of us were expecting it—the collective heartbeat of the room stills for a moment while it echoes through all of us. "So he could sneak up on me and kill me again, or what? You know, I let him live at first 'cause I thought he could become a good guy, but then he turned around and did that to me!" his breath hisses in and out. "He don't know how to fight fair. How d'you think I felt when I came back and he was right there, huh, standing with all you guys? All I can say is, 'least it was me and not Kuririn or Piccolo he killed, or we couldn'ta brought 'em back." His eyes are boring into mine and anything I might have wanted to say is caught in my throat. I didn't think Son was...well, capable of...I don't know, feeling anything other than excitement. The once or twice I've seen him get like this...well, damn, it's not something I like thinking about. "You know all he woulda done is wait 'til his friends showed up, and let them beat us up! All he is, is a rotten guy! Rotten all the way through, like all the guys before who tried to pull stuff like this—like the Red Ribbon Army and—"

"And me," Piccolo says. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think he looked the least bit hurt over it. I mean, what a great welcome to fighting with the good guys, right? Like he needed more reasons to regret teaming up with Son. Not that he doesn't still freak me out, but...less than before, I guess. He's not the same as he used to be. I think we have Gohan to thank for that.

"You're different," Son finally says.

"Why?" Gohan asks, and that's maybe even more shocking than Son's outburst. Even Piccolo looks surprised, this time.

"Well, he's not trying to kill me, for one thing," Son answers.

"For now," Piccolo and Gohan say at the same time.

"You really think he's gonna kill me?" Son asks Gohan. I can't tell if he's surprised, or just stuffing down his anger and it's coming out as shock. "Like as soon as the Saiyans are gone he'll turn around and do me in, after all this?"

"Maybe not," Gohan says, and already I can tell that this kid is wise beyond his years, and maybe even his father's. I had my doubts, at first, because he hardly spoke, so it was hard to tell, but clearly being around these guys—and, I'm guessing, mostly, Piccolo—has been good for him. He's so...confident. Well, in comparison to how he was before. He looks like his knees are a little shaky, but, shoot, he's openly arguing with someone—an adult—his own father—this little kid. "But I bet that if we hadn't had to spend all this time together training to fight the Saiyans, he woulda done it." He pauses. "I bet he woulda come and killed you, and kept anybody from bringing you back to life, and I'd grow up not having a father."

Piccolo grunts. "It doesn't matter, because I'm going to die if we don't change something soon, and quickly. What's more, we don't know what Raditz has done, or how it will affect our battle with the Saiyans, if at all." His eyes narrow at me, like he thinks I'm the most likely to know what he would have wished for if not a tail—and, well, if it's anyone, it would be me, but—I don't. Shit, if he had something else he wanted besides the tail, how did he ever hide it from me? The only other things he ever claimed wanting were to get off the planet, and...

"Maybe he wished himself off of Earth," I guess.

"To where?" Piccolo asks as he inclines his head, like he thinks my guess might be a good one. Hell, it makes sense—since he disappeared from Earth, and all...

"Maybe to wherever the others are—the other Saiyans," I say, but my gut turns around at the thought of it. He's different than them, right? He wouldn't just...I mean, he even always talked about how he never really liked Vegeta (and who can blame him? he seems like a total prick), but, maybe...I mean...still, he always seemed proud of being a Saiyan...I don't know, I wouldn't want to associate myself with those other two. Oh—"I know; I can use the scouter to contact them, and we'll find out if he's with them!"

"You can _what_?" Yamcha says. "You're going to talk to them _again_?" Oh, great, this doesn't make me look too good, does it? He mutters something under his breath about fraternizing with the enemy and I roll my eyes at him. It's true, it still tears at me, to think that it was because of Raditz that I'm not with Yamcha anymore, but...I've been working on trying to convince myself that it would have happened anyway. Right? But I love the guy...I don't know...and what if Raditz isn't coming back? Or if the fucker breaks his promise and just comes back with his buddies and kills us all? Damn, I am so stupid.

"Geez, it's just to gather more information," I say, and all is right with the world again, aside from my own lingering thoughts. It's true; no way I'd even consider doing anything else with those jackasses. Still, the way he said it just had me convinced for a second that I really _was _a traitor, somehow...but that doesn't make any sense. Not, at least, in regards to those two Saiyans. The other? That's up for debate.

"Do it," Piccolo says, and when I throw the covers off and scurry out of bed he averts his eyes, along with some of the others. Tch, it's not like they can _see _anything—I'm wearing a big, baggy t-shirt, for goodness' sake, but—whatever, modesty is their problem, not mine. I sprint downstairs and open my desk drawer—not there, but, maybe, I put it in the other—no—but maybe it's on—shit, shit, shit—

And back up the stairs I sprint, to find that the others have moved into the living room. "It's not there," I blurt, out of breath. "Raditz must have taken it."

Well, those who were pissed about it before are more so now. Sure, harass me about wanting to contact them with the scouter and then be angry when I can't. But, as per usual, my brilliance shines through at just the right moment. "I can build a new one," I say. "I've memorized the circuitry backwards and forwards, got all my sketches. It'll be easy. Then," I grin, "I can contact Raditz and find out where the hell he went!"

"Good," Piccolo says, and Gohan seems relieved—maybe because this actually reassures him, or maybe because Son seems to have calmed down substantially.

"You always come through, Bulma," Son says to me. "Maybe you could build another radar, too, in case we need to use the dragonballs after we fight the Saiyans?" Piccolo shoots him a dirty look, assumedly because as per usual, Son seems to have totally forgotten small details like the fact that Kami seems absolutely positive that he and Piccolo are going to die, and soon.

"I will," I say, shrugging at Piccolo with a little smile so he knows that I know that Son's forgotten. Can't hurt, anyway, right?

I'm also going to start pouring myself into finishing that spaceship, and getting everything just right. Part of me wonders if Raditz phrased whatever his wish was really stupidly, and ended up being transported away (I wouldn't put it past Shenlong) to another planet or something that. And if that's the case, well, maybe I'll need to go get him back. Not that I'm going to tell anyone else any of this, besides maybe Gohan or Piccolo. Before I forget about that, I pace over around the corner to the kitchen and look on the counter, for where my father said he'd leave the ship capsule for me. It's gone, and for a second I figure he must have just taken it back himself to work on in the lab today—because I saw it there yesterday afternoon—but that's before I remember that he's been gone since yesterday evening to some conference. ...Aw, shit. Raditz took the [unfinished—nonoperational—stupid bastard] ship, too.

Guess I'll be starting from scratch. Oh well...at least I have all the plans. It'll only take a few weeks at most to build back what I had.

And yeah, I'm a little pissed at Raditz. Enough that I have to grin a little bit imagining him getting ready to go somewhere, throwing down the capsule (assuming he's even figured out how to use them, but I guess if he took it, he must have), and walking into the ship to find exposed circuitry everywhere, a few coffee cups, and tools, and...

God. Fucking. Dammit.

And all my plans.

Guess I really will be starting from scratch.

Before any of the others can pester me with their personal problems with each other (or, more likely, with Raditz, and their assumption that all of this is my fault), I heave a sigh and head down to the lab to refresh myself on how the pod works. Redoing everything won't be _so _bad—I did it once and I can do it again—but—talk about sucking away all my free time. I want to get this thing done fast, because, to be honest, I know that if it comes to looking like the Saiyans are going to blow up the planet—I'm getting out of here. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that," I mutter, shutting the door to the lab behind me and turning down the hallway to where I've been keeping the pod, only to smack into somebody who was stupidly standing right in my way.

"You're building a ship, right?" It's Piccolo.

"Rebuilding, more like," I mutter, too upset to be surprised at the moment. "Raditz took the unfinished one, and I had all my schematics in there because I'd just been working on it."

"Kami has told me," he says, "that he has something that may be of interest to show you." His eyes bore into mine in that particularly intense, Piccolo way. "It is wise to have an escape plan," he comments, like he's been listening to my thoughts. "I will take you to Kami, but you must swear to me you will do me one service."

Yikes. I don't want to know what someone like Piccolo asks of someone like me. Still, he's got that same heavy look about him. Yeesh, I don't know how Namekian aging works, but if he stays this worried he'll look just like Kami before the Saiyans even arrive. "Sure," I mouth.

"If the Saiyans begin to overpower Son Goku and his friends, and myself, you will take Gohan with you when you leave." Damn. He is serious about this.

"I don't plan on being anywhere near the battle," I tell him. "I don't know how I'd do such a thing."

"I will tell Son and the others to have one of them bring Gohan to you, if such a situation should arise," he says. "I am fearful...Gohan will...make unwise judgments should anyone close to him perish."

He's talking about himself, when he says "anyone close to him," and we both know it. I don't know how those two became such good friends, but, I'm in awe of it. That Gohan could do something like that to make Piccolo...care... It also explains how Raditz became less of a jerk the more time he spent with Gohan. Well, I _thought _he was less of a jerk. Tch. Asshole.

"Okay," I say. "Of course." I don't need to be told twice—hell, if I'm going into space, I wouldn't complain about bringing somebody ridiculously strong along with me. In any case, I heard about how he exploded at Raditz when he was about to kill Son—the first time, I mean. I guess nothing quite that bad happened the second time—just because things were a little different—and I guess I'm glad of it or I'd probably have had to rebuild the whole lab, from the sound of it. So I guess I can see where Piccolo's coming from, as far as goes Gohan not making rational decisions. After all, he's just a kid.

His eyes keep drilling through me and I try to hold strong so that he knows I'm serious about it; finally, Piccolo nods. "Good. Then you will accompany me to where Kami and Mister Popo are waiting for you." Sort of awkwardly, he grabs me around my sides, and I try not to fidget. Of course, the flying, and I'm sure I couldn't talk him into just telling me the way while I fly a plane. Piccolo seems just as uncomfortable with picking me up as I am with his rough green hands and their big claws digging into my sides. He glances around, considering that if he runs me back upstairs and out an actual door, he might risk being seen—at least, I assume that's his rationale for diving through the window (suspiciously already open—I bet it's where Raditz left through) before rocketing us both up into the sky.

Yup, just another morning for Bulma Briefs.


	22. I, 22: Gohan

I really wish I knew where Raditz went.

Sometimes I sit and meditate like Piccolo does, except, I'm stretching my senses all the way around the world to try to find Raditz's _ki_. Who knows, maybe Piccolo is doing the same thing. He seems just a tiny bit worried about it, I think because he thinks that Raditz would have helped us in the fight against the Saiyans. But, Kami says that every week his death feels closer, and there's no Raditz anywhere, and everyone is starting to get a little bit scared.

Yamcha says, "Good riddance," but it's like he doesn't train as hard as before. He keeps trying to talk to Bulma but he says she's "holding out for that sonnuvabitch" and I think normally that would make him angrier but it's like he's running out of energy. Maybe it's because Raditz isn't around for him to be mad at.

Dad doesn't seem very bothered about it, but I guess he didn't like Raditz much to start with. He says it doesn't matter because if he ever comes back he can just beat him up anyway and...I don't know. It makes me kind of sad, because Raditz isn't _that_ bad or nothing, I mean, he's bad, but he hasn't really done _that _much bad stuff lately and, I always thought Dad was the kind of guy who forgave people for stuff. I asked Tenshinhan, because aside from Piccolo, he's the guy around here who seems the least likely to get super mad at me for saying anything about Raditz, if that's true, my thought about Dad normally being nice even to mean people if they seem like they might not be a hundred percent mean. Tenshinhan said, yeah, Dad always was the kinda guy who forgave people if it seemed like they had a hope of getting better. He said once he was on the wrong side, too. It seems like everybody here used to be bad, maybe besides Kuririn, because nobody's ever said anything about him, but...I don't get it. Maybe it's different because Raditz killed Dad. But...I don't think...I don't know. Maybe he _would _do it again. But I feel like maybe...maybe if I was around...maybe he wouldn't. I don't think he likes seeing me sad, or maybe it's that he's afraid of seeing me angry.

But I guess it doesn't matter really, because Raditz isn't here right now and nobody knows where he is. Bulma is trying to build a scouter to contact him. She said it's almost done; she said there's some parts she has to make by hand, or something. I even helped, a little bit, and she taught me some stuff about how to build things, and even explained about electricity and physics and stuff. Maybe I should go over there more often...it would be like studying like I used to do before I had to put all my time into studying fighting, but more fun. Maybe after all this.

Piccolo...keeps getting quieter and quieter. He always asks me if I've been practicing the Makankosappo, which I always do every single day. Some days, he's really angry and goes and spars everybody. He can beat everybody but my dad, and even then usually they're both looking pretty bad by the end. When he gets mad, it's really scary. Maybe that's not so different from how I was, the one time I remember it happening, when Dad died. Everybody says it's scary. It scares me, too. Especially lately, especially with all these rocks in my belly that get hot like lava. Dad says, my power is inside my emotions. When I think too much about people dying, about these Saiyans showing up and blowing up the forest, and blowing up the cities, and all the awful things Raditz says Saiyans do, my insides get hot. Even Raditz is scared of these guys. He says, if they find out that he actually kind of cares about Bulma (which he only told me if I swore I wouldn't say it to anybody else, though I don't know why he would think that I would tell the Saiyans that), then they'll surely do something awful to her, 'cause he says since they're stronger than him, they like to bother him however they can. He says mostly it's the one called Vegeta, 'cause Nappa mainly just follows. He says, Nappa would be a "proper Saiyan" if it weren't for Vegeta, whatever that means.

He told me a lot of things about being a Saiyan and it was really interesting but I don't think I could ever do it. It sounded...awful. I hope one day he's not like that, that he doesn't like that stuff, but, I don't know if it'll ever happen. It seems like he's as stubborn about about being a Saiyan as my dad is about not being a Saiyan. The difference is, at least Raditz is right.

Once not that long ago, when I was meditating, I was thinking about how Piccolo is so sure he's gonna die, even now, even after all the training we did. My mind started wandering and I imagined what's gonna happen when the Saiyans show up, and then this vision played through my head, of Piccolo dying, and it was...terrible. I felt like I fell asleep, I felt like I woke up...then fell asleep again...and when I snapped back to it, I felt like my insides were all singed. I don't know if I ever really fell asleep. Maybe I was awake the whole time. It was so blurry. All that was left was me being so _mad _about the Saiyans killing Piccolo.

If Raditz was still here, I woulda asked him about it. I don't know why, but it just feels like it's a Saiyan thing. Actually, I do know why. It's...a little...weird, though.

Like I said, when I felt like I was myself again, after that whole thing, my insides felt burnt. Everything hurt, like my blood was rushing through too fast, or like inside it was one of those scary-looking chemicals in Bulma's lab. Like I just finished a sparring match, but also like I was poisoned, somehow. I thought maybe it was just because I was so mad, but even after I wasn't mad, the feeling kept going, and whenever I think of it again, of that whole thing, and most especially of Piccolo dying, everything starts hurting real bad and I have to stop. I think I should ask Bulma about it, maybe she's the next-best thing to asking Raditz, maybe she can look at my blood and see if there's anything weird with it.

But I just keep feeling like I got up way too bad by my own insides, and I think it's a Saiyan thing because—because I think—it's something about my tail. It hurts more than anything else and I don't think I want to try to put up with it anymore. I know Raditz wouldn't like it, and, I don't really like it either, but...

"Dad," I say, and walk up to him, and he looks up in the middle of taking a big bite of fish.

"What is it, Gohan?" he says, with little bits of food flying out of his mouth. Gee, am I glad Mom taught me how to be nice while I eat. "Are you feeling better? Wanna spar?"

I take a big, deep breath. I've just gotta say it. "Cut my tail off."

I shoulda asked Piccolo, I...but... "Why?" he asks, but he looks happy. I know that he used to like having a tail, but I guess now he's just looking for ways to be less like Raditz, less like a Saiyan. I guess Raditz left him feeling pretty sour about the whole thing.

"Did you ever feel like there was something burning away all your insides?" I ask him. Right. This is why I came up to him to talk about this. Maybe, maybe this one time he'll think about how he's a Saiyan, if it's going to help me. "Or like your stomach is full of big heavy coals?"

The way his eyebrows come up in the middle says I'm probably not in luck. "No," he says. "Not really, no."

"Like, what if you imagine Mom dying, or me, or, or Kuririn, or..." I hope maybe if he does it then and there it'll happen and he'll know what I mean.

"I don't do that," he says, like he's kind of mad. "I don't like to think about things like that, Gohan."

"Me either," I say. Maybe this was a bad idea. "But sometimes I do on accident."

"What does this have to do with your tail?" he says.

"I think it's my tail that makes my insides feel really awful after I get all mad," I say. "It hasn't always been like that, but, you know..."

"Hm," he says. "Well, okay. It's probably for the best anyway, you know? That you get it cut off, I mean. Your tail is your weak spot."

That's not true, because Raditz and I were trying to figure out how I could train my tail so that it wouldn't hurt if somebody pulled on it and stuff. But, I'm not gonna say that, of course. So I just nod.

"All right, well, this won't be too bad," he says, grabbing 'round the bottom of my tail. "It never hurt me too much, at least."

"Yeah," I say. "It'll be better than how I feel now, anyway, sooner or later. I hope."

"Here goes," he says, and _yank_, just like that, he's pulled it off. I yelp, but forget about the pain as my dad throws the tail to the ground and blasts it. "There," he looks at me. "That was okay, right? Feel any better?"

"Not yet," I say, 'cause the pain from having it yanked out starts coming back. Maybe it is better to have it gone now, though. After all, Raditz said that he had a "ghost-tail." I read up about it, one of the times my insides left me all tired. When you lose part of your body and you can still feel it they call it a phantom limb, I guess. I guess if I had my tail for as long as he did, and it got pulled off, I'd have the same problem. It doesn't sound very nice... "But I hope I will soon."

"Let's spar as soon as you do," he says, and smiles at me with that big smile that he has when he's proud of me. "You've gotten really strong and I don't think we ever really went all-out against each other."

Actually, I don't really like that thought much, 'cause...he's really strong, and, a _real _real fight is still really scary to me. I know Piccolo wishes I could change that part of me, but I don't know if I ever will. My dad is the opposite...he's not happy until everybody's fighting their very hardest against him and it feels like a real battle. Not that I know what a real battle feels like...but I'm kind of glad I don't. "Okay," I say. I have to, with that big smile of his. I never used to make him smile like that, not that he didn't like me, you know. But I don't think he really understands what studying is. Maybe I was boring to him, when all I did was study because Mom didn't want to let him train me.

"I'm going to go visit Bulma," I say.

"What for?" he asks. I think he's still a little mad at Bulma, not like the way he's mad at Raditz, but, like she let him down I guess. I don't know...I guess maybe it was her fault, but...we don't even know what happened. All I saw was Raditz standing there, underneath the dragon, and then he was gone, and then it was gone.

I don't know if I really want to tell him that I wanna go there so I can see if she can tell me anything else about Saiyans, like if Raditz said anything to her about the burning, or anything like that, or maybe if she got a hold of him if she finished the scouter. "I'm just going to have her look and make sure my body isn't messed up," I say. That's pretty close, right? I don't like lying, and especially to my dad, but it seems like I keep having to stop myself from saying things. "'Cause it sure feels that way, you know?"

"Sure," he says, and I guess he seems okay with that. "Can you get some heavier weights while you're there? I'm almost used to these. Er, if she puts them in one of those capsule things you should be able to carry them, right?"

"Yeah," I say. "I might be a while, 'cause last time she told me about how electricity works and it was really cool so I wanna ask her more."

"Okay," my dad tilts his head a little, like he doesn't get it. And, well, maybe he doesn't. I take off in a hurry, rubbing at the spot where my tail was. I better get there fast, in case I was right, in case cutting off my tail gets rid of the burnt feeling, because if it does then what if Bulma can't test anything? Somehow, I think she'd be upset too. She always wants to learn stuff, just like me. Thinking that maybe my answer to what's wrong is right around the corner makes me speed up even more, and I'm there in no time. Bulma is standing outside, like she was waiting for me all along—and it looks like she has something important to say.


	23. I, 23: Raditz

NOTE: Sorry for the delay. My computer died, so the progress I had made on this chapter died with it. It took a while for me to motivate myself to start again (and I know that this isn't the same as what I had before, nor did it turn out the way I thought it would).

Hope this chapter isn't too bad. It's not even been two weeks and I already feel rusty!

Raditz is in denial. XD Note how he completely refuses to acknowledge that he must be there for reasons other than his tail since he could've just gotten that anyway...

Also: hang in there; this ride is about to get even crazier!

…

I keep saying the wish to myself like I gotta do it to make sure I get somewhere that ain't Earth, or like my feet'll just keep falling through space if I don't make 'em real sure they're going someplace. _Take me somewhere where I can increase my strength like Kakarrot did when the trained in the afterlife_, I think as hard as I can, hoping the sound of the dragon saying my wish was granted wasn't all in my head. Then I feel my toes hit the ground.

Damn, damn, damn. The gravity is the same as Earth's. I don't wanna open my eyes. Shit, that fucking dragon was just pulling my tail—he probably just moved me to some other place on Earth as a joke.

But I gotta peek eventually, so I open my eyes real slow. The world is blue and green, and—shit—but—wait—it's all…backwards from Earth. The sky is green; this grassy leafy stuff is blue. I can't keep a grin off my face—I am finally off of that godforsaken planet.

'Course then I gotta go back to thinking about my wish—about why I'm here. 'Cause the truth is, I'm going _back_ to that godforsaken planet, even if only for long enough to get my tail back. Thing is, no way Vegeta's just gonna let me use the dragon balls.

And that's why I'm here.

'Cause I gotta make sure the guy gets beat, 'cause my tail's worth more to me even than the thought of never having to see Kakarrot's traitor ass again. Without my tail, 's like I'm less _me_, y'know? I've gone without it for a little while a time or two, but not nearly this long.

There's some other things on Earth might be worth saving, but I ain't quite sure yet how to deal with that. After all, if Vegeta bites the bullet, Freeza's gonna notice and it's not as if I'm keen to be on any kinda list of his. Fact of it is, it don't matter how strong I get, or how strong Kakarrot's whelp Gohan gets, or how strong Kakarrot gets, ain't nobody gonna be able to fight once Freeza sets his mind to something. I've been lucky not to witness anything too bad he's done in person, but Vegeta's got stories. What of 'em are lies I can't tell, 'cause, gods, the man _hates _Freeza like nobody I've seen, even ones who've got more a right than he does, but there's gotta be at least a speck of truth in 'em, right?

But none of that matters right now, 'cause I don't even know where I am, nor how strong I'm gonna be able to get while I'm here. Guess it's about time I look around for who it is I oughtta be killing.

…

I'm beginning to think that dragon was just fucking with me. Here's the thing—I've been following around what I can sense of these guys and everywhere I look it's these quaint little villages. They must be resting indoors 'cause I ain't seen none of 'em yet. But things're looking promising from where I've been waiting, out on the outskirts of this village. If I focus real hard (or use my scouter) I can see beings stirring, and finally one of 'em comes out of a door.

A Namekian, like that Piccolo bastard. And another—and—well, damn, this must be Namek. I've heard of it, only 'cause there were one or two who told some crazy tales about what the Namekians used to be like, I guess, and there was one Namekian once who worked for Freeza, tho' he didn't come from Namek itself, I hear—not that I ever spoke to 'im. Dunno if Freeza even knew where he was from. Doubt he cared in the slightest.

So maybe all these guys are fighters like Piccolo, but from what I can sense, that ain't what I suspect. And anyway, they're all out doing cutesy peaceful things, caring for plants and conversing and all that pleasant bullshit.

Well, whatever it is I'm supposed to do here to get my training, guess a little killing won't hurt. The thought of it makes my blood all hot, like it's rushing through me twice as fast, or maybe like there's twice as much of it. 'Bout all any of 'em sees before they're dust (and, _damn_, have I gotten stronger—I'd best thank the brat) is my teeth and a big, bright light. It's when I'm stalking around seeing if there's anybody left—maybe a cute, tender little one, 'cause I'm getting hungry—that I notice something funny.

And I mean it, almost funny enough that I wanna laugh, like after all that it was just that the dragon made some tiny little corner of hell for me, reminding me of Earth at every turn. 'Cause, see, inside one of those buildings…I found a giant dragonball.

…

Figures, I mean—which, you ask, which thing figures—well—both. First thing that figures is that on a place full of the thing that made those dragonballs me and Bulma found there'd be more dragonballs. Second thing that figures is that somebody noticed what I did and ain't too happy about it.

Didn't stop me from giving him a run for his money—I mean "a run" literally, 'cause, I dashed and flew off to another village and blasted it to kingdom come just to spite him as he chased on my heels, but, hell, he was stronger'n me in the end and look where it got me. At least I ain't dead, but, the big building on this huge tower of rock he's bringing me to don't exactly look inviting. He's got me held by my wrists and I ain't exactly in a position to struggle, so I hold off for now. Difference between me and Vegeta is, I ain't so cocky as to figure I'll be strong enough to get out of every little thing. Sometimes you gotta talk yourself out of it, 'cause sometimes you just gotta face that somebody's gonna kick your ass, and dying ain't worth not being called a coward, I guess. I'm still alive and I still wager that'll be more than Vegeta can say when he's as old as me. I figure it won't be long before he pisses Freeza off something mad and gets what's coming to him.

Not that I don't like him, but damn, the guy's unbearable.

I get dumped off unceremoniously once we get inside the building. This Namekian who's gotta be every bit as strong as that Piccolo on Earth gives me a kick in the side—just to prove who's boss, I guess.

"I found this one destroying our villages," he says with a kind of quiet and respectful voice he sure as hell didn't use with me. "When I glimpsed him, he had found one of the dragonballs. He seems to recognize them."

"Is that so?" it ain't 'til the voice speaks that I twist my head around and sit up to notice this _giant-ass_ Namekian sitting on some kind of throne. _Shit_, he's about the size of some planets' moons. Then he rumbles out in his ungodly low voice, "Let me look into his mind."

"He is dangerous, Great Elder," the asshole who brought me here says. Then he adds more quietly, "Be careful." He picks me up and shoves me that way. I figure I oughtta follow. Nobody's trying to kill me yet and I prefer it that way. Before I can even start to say something (what it'd be, I don't know—I suspect "Are your people tasty?" wouldn't be the best choice; seems to offend most), he's got his big hand 'round my head, but it don't feel like he's gonna crush it so I stay still. "You are on a quest," he says.

"No shit," I say. Why else would I be here? Then I think—hell—what if I could use these dragonballs? I could get my tail back right here and now.

"You may," he says, "but your purpose is greater than that—you seek more, I see."

Aw, dammit. He can read my—I try to stop thinking, but, shit, the words don't stop rambling through my head; naw, they go faster. "Just want my tail back," I say. "That's what this is all about."

He laughs and he looks about like somebody bumped the table and one of Bulma's mother's gaudy desserts started wobbling. Then he laughs more, and, dammit… "So you will find a way to restore your body and then continue your work?" he asks, like it don't occur to him that my work is things like what I was just doing here—though I'm sure he's gotta know it. He tilts his head down a little, like it'll do the dead any good if he remembers them.

"Yeah," I say. "Sounds about right."

"Interesting," the big guy says, "is it not? How we may so readily forgive those who betray us, if we choose to." Now he's just babbling, I'd suppose. What, so he's gonna forgive me for wiping out his precious village? Like I give a damn about that. "For instance, consider the one I see in your mind with blue-furred head. I see that you have killed her friend. It seems to me that you have caused her much suffering. Why, then, has she treated you so kindly? Why the closeness?"

I try real hard not to think of the last time we did it—aw, dammit. But if the guy notices, he don't even blink. (Well, shit, his eyes are shut—who knows what's going on in that head?)

But this ain't exactly what I wanna think about right now, nor especially what I want somebody in my head about, chattering away to that other Namekian who brought me in. I move out from under his big hand and he don't say a word. "You're wasting my time," I say, like I oughtta explain myself.

"Very well," he says. "Continue on your quest. You will find what you seek here, unless you slaughter more of our people."

"Unless?" I say. Normally the slaughtering is not only the fastest way to what I want, but also the most fun. Dammit, this is gonna be just about as boring as Earth… "What's it to you? What do I care what you think?" Shit, he's just a big fat guy. Not as if he could chase me down. Maybe fighting this other Namekian, the one who brought me here, is how I'm supposed to get stronger, anyway. Maybe I kick his ass and then go 'round slaughtering everybody else as a little reward.

"If you doubt my wisdom…" he starts, "then by all means, do what you will."

Which don't mean a thing to me 'til I realize he was saying I oughtta think about the fact that he got just about everything right. You know, aside from that I'm here for more than my tail, 'cause to say anything else would be to spew a bunch of bullshit.

Bulma would be a nice prize to come away with, yeah, but I'll get along without here, sure. Same with Kakarrot's brat, who for how he looks oughtta be mine, but—but it ain't as if I need him, either.

I'd say they never did nothing for me, but I guess that'd be a lie. I guess this nice new armor I got on now didn't come from nowhere and I guess that I'm stronger wasn't no accident and I guess that I can pinpoint that there's a few other Namekians outside ain't just because of my scouter. Maybe it's true the only reason I got here is Bulma was sure I wasn't gonna steal her radar, wasn't gonna take a wish for myself. Maybe it's true I owe 'em something more than getting my tail here and letting Vegeta get to the planet and take what he wants and blow it up and leave.

Maybe I don't like the idea of Vegeta hunting down somebody who's got a dragonball radar while I'm gone, now that I've taken it. Maybe I don't like the thought of his clean little princely fingers pushing her around.

And maybe this old fat Namekian is right and I'm gonna find here what I need so that I can do what I wanna on Earth, and maybe I'm gonna do it.

"Surely he would embrace such a fate," I hear the low grumbling-voice, but there's no way he's reading my mind from here, now I've wandered halfway across the room to the door. I look back and he's talking to the one who brought me in, their heads as close together as they can be like they were mumbling to each other. They both look at me and notice I'm gawking at them. "You have much to do," the old one says.

Don't know where I'm going, but I don't gotta be asked twice—I get the hell out of there.


	24. I, 24: Bulma

NOTE: Sorry again for the delay (compared to my usual rate). My computer dying seriously killed my momentum. To be honest, the first part of this chapter is the only part where I really had any idea where I was going. I hope it's okay! Hopefully I can get back on track with this story, slowly but surely, and hopefully also feel a little less rusty. Reviews are much appreciated!

…

Naturally, the moment I get the scouter to work and get all excited because I can now not only find Raditz's location in the universe, but also communicate with him and ask him what the hell he's up to, he crushes all my dreams. This is about how it went: after I filled Gohan in on the news (his uncle is somewhere out in space, so apparently he didn't actually wish for his tail; that I'll be able to talk to him—Gohan wanted in on the conversation but I figured it'd be best to avoid that trainwreck, given that Raditz might be feeling…_lonely_), I scurried back down to my lab to turn the scouter on—the moment of truth.

"Hello?" I spoke into it, hoping that the numbers I'd copied down from Raditz's scouter back when I was trying to figure out how it worked were right, that I got the right frequency to communicate with him and not some other crazy space-pirate.

He says something like, "Bulma?" and then, "Shit." Tired.

"Where are you? What are you doing?" I ask him.

"Stop bothering me," he says—like I've been doing this all along, or something.

"God," I say, "can't I be just a _little _bit curious? A little bit concerned? Huh? Or am I supposed to just assume I'm never going to see you again, or what?"

It's quiet on his end for a good long while. Then he says, "Don't be stupid; I wouldn't leave a Saiyan with as much potential as Kakarrot's brat on your sorry planet to rot away like the rest of you."

"I thought we were all going to die painful, violent deaths?" I ask helpfully. Something's eating at him, I can tell, but I just have no idea what. If I could see his face, maybe…

"Right," he says, "that."

"So I take it by that answer," I say, "that the other two Saiyans are going to get here before you get back."

"No," he says firmly, and I can't tell if he's disagreeing with my logic or with what I suggested. Damn scouters just aren't as good for communicating as an old-fashioned videophone. Naturally, I get a bit of a warm fuzzy feeling thinking that he actually feels pretty strongly about defending us. I mean, I know that was his plan all along, for whatever reason he was making up at the time, but it's nice to hear it.

"By the way," I say, "the spaceship you stole from me?"

"Borrowed," he grunts.

"Yeah, whatever. You realize it's not finished, right?" I ask.

"Aw, shit," he mumbles. About then the realization settles in that if he can't get back to Earth, he can't help fight the Saiyans off, and I think everyone else (or at least Piccolo and Gohan) really was figuring on him helping. Panic strikes.

"How are you going to get away in time?"

More quiet. "I'll manage," he says. "Dammit." If his voice could reveal any more clearly the fact that he's conflicted about something, he'd be out-and-out telling me so.

"How?" I ask, again, like it'll work better the more I say it.

"There's dragonballs here," he finally says. "It's Namek. The planet your green friend hails from. Now leave me the hell alone."

"Raditz, I—" I start to say something or another, but what it is, I'll never know, because right then everything goes quiet. Bastard blocked my frequency.

And here I am, trying with all my willpower not to crush the stupid thing in my hand. I can't do that yet—maybe once I calm back down I should try to get more information about when the Saiyans are getting here. I don't know if he was kidding—about the dragonballs, about being on this Namek place, but—if it's a lie, it seems a little too elaborate for his style. Maybe it's true…maybe he really _is_ on this planet full of a bunch of people like Piccolo.

That's enough to get me right back into the lab to keep going on the spaceship. Maybe it's good Raditz stole the other one—this remade version is much better, anyway. I don't know if it'll be done before the Saiyans get here, but I'm doing everything I can. I'll tell Gohan about the conversation later. For now, I roll up my sleeves and head back into the other room, with all my blueprints and tools littering the floor and one half-finished spaceship reaching up toward the ceiling.

…

I trudge downstairs late in the morning—it was a rough night last night; convinced myself I'd stay up until I could finish the all-important engine, thought I was almost done. I wasn't, as it turned out—but I stayed up until I finished it anyway. Frankly, I'm impressed I managed to pull myself out of bed before mid-afternoon. With all this business of the Saiyans coming, I admit I've kind of put my other duties on the backburner, but Dad's been more than happy to pick up the slack so long as I let him come look at my progress on the ship every now and again. I could really do without comments like, "But this is only a _regular_ coffee maker," but I guess it's worth it.

Just as I'm dragging my sorry ass into the kitchen to get some caffeine, I glimpse someone on the living room couch. "Chi-Chi?" I ask. Mom must've let her in earlier. How long has she been sitting there?

"Bulma," she sniffs out, her voice quivering in that almost-crying way. When I approach the living room I see that she has that girl Lunch with her, patting her on the back and mumbling to her in a soft voice.

I sit down on the couch beside them. "What is it, Chi-Chi?"

"Gohan and Goku came and visited me yesterday," she says, shoulders hunched.

"Isn't that a good thing?" I ask.

"Yes, but…" she sniffs, "but Gohan is so _old_! He grew up without me!" and now she really is weeping; pulls a tissue out of her pocket like it'll be enough to stop the torrent of fluids running down her face. Lunch and I exchange glances and for just half a second I feel like I know her better than I actually do.

I wrap one arm around her shoulder. "That can't possibly be true, Chi," I tell her, though I know she's right. I think I've seen Gohan more than she has—his visits to me with news from Piccolo, news from Son, his own guesses about what's going on, asking for more training weights for Son and the others—and he's become…something that a little kid like him shouldn't be. How old is he? Seven? And he's so heavy sometimes. It's because of Piccolo; I know it. The kid loves him, and so far as we know, Piccolo and Kami are going to die. Piccolo himself has gone from "creepy evil guy I can't stand" to being somehow older and wiser…the few times I've seen him in recent months, it's like those constant thoughts of his death have made him realize he has to change. I doubt he's overlooked what he's doing to Gohan in the process.

"He still has plenty of growing up to do," I finally add.

"All he talks about," she goes on as if she didn't hear me, "is how he's going to beat the Saiyans before they can hurt Piccolo. He's going to jump right in there and fight!" she cries, and I jump back at the sudden loudness of her voice. "And I can't do anything to stop him!"

"I doubt Son will allow it," I say. I don't know if it's true, but at least it sounds nice. "And you know what? I think if Raditz gets back in time, I don't think he'll allow it, either."

Which was, I guess, the wrong thing to say, because her shining, wet eyes turn to me full of fire. "That _monkey_ of _yours_," she spits, in a way that manages to make my guilt about Yamcha resurge, filling my gut, "is not going to have anything to do with any _son _of _mine_."

"I just meant…" I start saying, but her eyes silence me. Shit, I guess bringing up the guy who killed her husband was kind of an asshole move on my part. I sometimes forget I'm the only one around here who seems to have mental problems like getting over the fact that the guy I'm sleeping with killed one of my best friends. Don't think I haven't thought about it, about how the hell I live with myself. I don't particularly _like_ thinking about what that means. What kind of person is the sort of person who just _gets over _things like that? Did the dragonballs warp my idea of what death is, now that we've used them to bring back two people? Gods, I hope so; hope it's not something else, something that was always in me. If I've thought long and hard about all the shit Raditz has done, all the people and things he's killed, and I still want_ him_ over_ Yamcha_—what does that make me?

She looks me over and stands up. "I'm going to talk to Goku about it," she finally says, like she can't stand to say what she has on her mind about Raditz or me or whatever else she was thinking about. Then she huffs out, and I hear a car starting up.

"Uh-oh," Lunch says. "Now how am I going to get back to the island?"

"I'll take you," I offer. "But would you like some lunch first?" It is decidedly way too late for people who get up at normal hours to be having breakfast. She giggles, and then I realize why, and snicker too.

"Okay," she says. "Thank you!"

I motion for her to follow me into the kitchen, almost sort of hoping she'll get a whiff of pepper or something and sneeze. I could use a little something to distract me from what just happened. Not that Chi-Chi and I were ever _really_ close, but I feel awful. I should have realized that Raditz would be a sore spot for her. At least I didn't say anything about the fact that Raditz and Gohan were exchanging techniques and all that other fighter stuff on a regular basis, meeting up to spar and so on. I don't think she'd hold up well knowing that not one, but_ two_ of the people who have or at least had an obsession with killing her husband are now her son's best friends.

After some silence (oh god, was I just standing there spacing out?) Lunch looks up from where she's seated herself at the table. "What…what's going on?" she asks, and her wide eyes make me think of a child's.

"I'm out of my mind, that's what," I say, shuffling over to the fridge. It is too early in the morning…or…afternoon…or…whatever it is now…for this.

"I mean," she clears her throat politely, "um, I mean, all the boys are training, and everybody's so worried." Then she glances down at her hands. "When I wake back up, you know, from…" she trails off, "well, my chest feels all funny. My…my _other side _is so…so upset, and nobody will tell me why. Muten Roshi just says it will worry my poor little heart," she giggles nervously, "maybe it's true."

Aw, damn, that's right—that other Lunch she turns into when she sneezes, the blonde Lunch, is _obsessed _with that guy Tenshinhan. (Well, I can't blame her, I guess. Creepy extra eye aside, he _is _pretty hot.) This one, though? I don't know, with her. She doesn't seem to care, or maybe it's that she loves everybody who'll pay attention to her (which, unfortunately, includes perverts like the turtle hermit). "Some Saiyans—these aliens—are coming to Earth soon. I guess," now I'm glancing at my own hands, "it's going to be a tough fight. So Raditz says."

"Raditz?" she asks.

"Never mind," I say. Who knows if she'll ever meet him properly anyway—maybe we'll be turned to dust before he gets back. I shiver at the thought. Maybe ending everything with Yamcha was a bad idea. Call me whatever you want, but there is something really depressing about thinking that I might not get another single hot makeout session with anybody before I die. Well, imagining what Raditz might do to the poor guy on the other end if he _does _get back in time is enough to keep me from it. He seemed in a pretty bad way when I talked to him…who knows what the hell has happened to him.

"Is that something too grimy for my ears too?" she asks, which catches my attention straight away. At first I'm sure she was kidding, but…she actually looks offended. Well, hell, if I were her, I would have strangled some answers out of somebody by now.

"Not at all," I assure her. "Just too long a story for how little sleep I got." She smiles at that, and fiddles with the napkins at the center of the table before apparently realizing what she was doing and folding her hands in her lap. The sight, somehow, saddens me. "Lunch," I say, at the same time she says my name. "Go ahead," I say.

"Do you think…I could stay here for a little while?" her eyes are pinned on her hands, still clenched together against her legs. "You could…tell me what's bothering the other me so much…and maybe…help her."

"I'd be happy to," as if to commit to it, I plunk two plates down on the table, and then two glasses. Truth be told, I always wondered what exactly makes her change, anyway…then again, maybe there are some things science isn't meant to poke around in. For instance, never will I ever try to understand how the dragonballs actually _work_. "I'd be happy to help you, too."

"Help me?" cute little head tilt and squeaky little voice.

"You get walked on too much," is all I say. Not like I'd know, really, but, "or at least, that's the impression I get."

She giggles and readjusts the ribbon in her hair as it begins to slip—looks like it's had about as rough a morning as I have. "I guess it depends on how you see it," she says. Huh. Something to mull over—I admit that I might not have been giving her enough credit, to have the kind of mental capacity for, you know...introspection.

"When we're done eating," I say, "care to help me work on the ship?"

"Ship?" she asks. "Like a spaceship?" I nod. She looks back down into her lap, face scrunching up. "What if I, um, you know, if I—ah—"

"You don't need to know anything about—"

"_—choo!_"


	25. I, 25: Gohan

NOTE: It took me so long to get motivated to just sit down and write this, but when I did, I did it all in one go. Very excited about the next chapter…interesting stuff to come. I hope this isn't too incoherent, given that it's been a week since I last wrote…whew.

Thanks for your continued support, and for putting up with my slightly slower rate of late! Blame my classes, and Dragon Age.

…

Things are getting…bad…here.

When I went by to see Mom, she was I guess as sad as I was worried she'd be. She went on about me growing up, about my hair, about, about just about everything I've sorta liked about myself ever since starting training out with Piccolo and the others.

And when I told her how I'm gonna make sure that nobody kills Piccolo, nobody destroys the dragonballs, even if it means something…something awful happens…well…she was…mad. I told her, the dragonballs can bring me back to life, if me dying saves them. The idea is still real scary—_real_ scary—but—every time I hear Piccolo mumbling to Kami when he thinks I'm already asleep for the night, it's like my insides are made of hot steel and I know I can do anything if I've gotta.

And when I said that, about bringing me back to life, she was mad at all sorts of things—mad at the dragonballs and mad at Piccolo and mad at Dad and then finally she decided she was mad at Raditz 'cause it was all his fault anyway for even showing up and for killing Dad that one time, since that's how the Saiyans found out about the dragonballs and all that. And Dad didn't help, he agreed with her, he said, Raditz was a big jerk and if he was just gonna run away before the fight, even though he made it seem like he was gonna help, well, he didn't deserve anything. I said, Bulma thinks he's coming back. But they didn't believe me. They don't know like I do, how Raditz secretly really _really _likes Bulma, in the eye-crinkling way that doesn't happen when you only sort of like somebody. Because they never spent a whole afternoon just _talking _to him. And they never got the feeling maybe a little part of him was a little part of them, like maybe he really _is _my uncle, like maybe…well.

"Piccolo," I say, cracking my eyes open, 'cause I was just pretending to be asleep again. He looks up from meditating and his eyes are poking into me like he can't believe he didn't notice I was awake. I had to get good at making my _ki _look sleepy, to peek in on what he talks to Kami about. It's never good. But maybe it is good that he talks to Kami anyway. Once, I heard, they were totally the opposite of each other. They're different, but not the opposite. He grunts like he does when he wants to hear what I wanna say but doesn't wanna go to all that trouble of telling me that. "Do you think Raditz is coming back? It's been a while."

"If what Bulma said is true," he tells me, "that he told her there are—are _dragonballs _on the planet he wound up on—there is at least a way. The question is whether he believes he will be meeting his death here; or, indeed, if he has deemed us worth fighting with." He snorts. "It seems there is little that man would willingly die for."

"Mm," is all I say, thinking about it. 'Cause, yeah, Raditz did seem _real _scared of one of those others, Vegeta or Nappa, killing him, and I guess if he thought that Dad and Piccolo and me and the others aren't strong enough to fight them off, then he'd figure we're all gonna die and he wouldn't wanna be a part of it. Then again, I have the picture in my head of how his face looked when I asked him one time what he'd do if Bulma died somehow in this whole big fight. And Piccolo doesn't have that. But I don't know if it's the same, if him looking like he really didn't like the idea of her dying all that much is the same as him risking dying so that she wouldn't. Or maybe, maybe he just didn't like me asking him about it. "Is there anything you'd die for, Piccolo?" I say. "I mean, um, I don't want you to, especially 'cause then the dragonballs would be gone…"

He just stays quiet.

"Piccolo?" I ask again.

"Go to bed, kid," he says to me. "And actually do it this time. If you seem sluggish when we spar tomorrow, I'll go even _less _easy on you. We cannot relent now, with the Saiyans so close; mercy is not an option, whether you're tired or not."

"Okay," I say, rolling over and curling with my back up against a nice nearby boulder. Acting like he's mean and all mad at me is sometimes Piccolo's way of crinkling his eyes.

…

It's weird, but I feel a lot better with my tail gone, and not for reasons Dad talks about like looking less like Raditz. It's like before when I got really mad all my insides burned, a little like they usually do, but then they also sort of started feeling like sore muscles, like they're little strips of rubber all rubbing together and not doing what you want them to but also like they're covered in lava, or really spicy soup. It hurt, bad bad _bad_, and I just _knew _somehow it was coming from my tail. Well, I didn't know it, but I felt like it, so much that that's why I'm glad it's gone now. I hope Raditz doesn't get too mad. Or maybe if he does get too mad, he'll find out too, about the tail making him hurt thing, unless maybe that's just me, for being, what's it he called me, a halfling. A while ago I tried to find books about stuff like that, but there wasn't much. I think Mom would be happy hearing how I'm still reading, but probably not if she found out how most of what I've read was about fighting (lots of stuff but not very much of it helped me a lot), and aliens (not very much stuff and it was way way different than anything Raditz ever said), and…

Well, anyway. It's good that I don't have it anymore, I think. It feels…better.

Piccolo and I have been sparring all morning (I really did go to sleep) but Piccolo just seems really distracted. When he misses punching me by a long shot, he stops. "One moment," he says.

"Is something wrong?" I ask. He's not gonna die _now_, is he? Like…of a sickness or something? I shake that idea out of my head.

"No," is all he says.

"I'm actually kinda hungry," I say, 'cause, I don't think he really only needed one little moment, by how his eyes are all hazy and far-off. It doesn't usually happen while we're sparring. "I'm gonna go get some lunch, okay?"

"Fine," he says. But I keep looking at him for a second, I guess partly 'cause I don't really know what I want to catch for lunch, but also because it seems like he wants to say something.

And then, he finally does. "So I really am from another planet."

Ohhh. He was thinking about how Raditz is at the place where the other people like him are. I told him about it, after I heard from Bulma. I mean, we knew before, from Raditz mentioning it, but I guess maybe it's different now that somebody's actually seen that there really is a planet full of people like him.

"Like Dad," I add in. He shakes his head a little, like I don't understand something.

"Go get your lunch, kid," he tells me. So I do.

…

I said things were bad around here but I never really said why, besides about Mom and Dad and Piccolo. Everyone is super nervous about the Saiyans. Yamcha is all angry, about something, about something having to do with Bulma still, but a little different than before. He almost tried to do the Kaio-ken again, the thing that messed him up so much before, but Tenshinhan stopped him. Yamcha cut off his ponytail that he used to have, trains almost harder than anybody.

Then this lady Lunch keeps showing up sometimes, and she's real scary. Kind of like how Mom is—like how she's not stronger than us or faster than us but she's still real, _real_ scary. Every time she shows up, Tenshinhan disappears, along with Chaotzu. One day, when she was partway through trying to shoot us with a gun, she turned into a different, nice lady. And she started crying, and I found out how she's staying with Bulma so I took her back there. She said she's scared about her "other side" and something about it creeping into her and…I didn't really get it, but she was happy I could carry her back home even though it was a little scary for her. She had a motorcycle but she really really didn't want to ride it, so we put it back in the capsule before I took off.

So that puts Tenshinhan in a bad mood, whenever she shows up, kind of like Yamcha's bad mood, kind of like he wants something really bad but it's not working. Except with him it's a little bit…a little bit different. He doesn't yell at other people. He mostly seems mad at himself.

Kuririn isn't mad, but it's hard to tell his mood. He's not happy either…he's worried. Dad always tells him he shouldn't be, and it's like he wants to think that, but he can't. He says he just gets the feeling something bad is going to happen and he's not gonna be able to do a single thing about it. I'm worried about that same thing, too.

…

I knock on the door, and it takes a little while, but Bulma finally answers. "Gohan!" she says, and it's nice to see somebody actually looking happy for once. "Come here, you have to see this!"

So I follow her in as she sort of hops down the stairs, wearing her clothes that are all smudged up by I guess chemicals and oil and stuff.

"Ta-da!" she says, holding her hands out, and then she notices there's nothing where she's pointing. "Oops," and then she pulls something out of her pocket, "forgot I capsulized it to test if that'd work too." Then she throws down the capsule she pulled out and _boom_, there's this giant…thing.

"It's a ship, Gohan! Our spaceship!" she's all bouncy and her voice is squeaky. I wonder if this is how girls normally act.

"Does it work?" I ask her. It's kind of like a big huge version of the pod that I sort of remember getting locked in, way back when, when Raditz was gonna take me away or…or…I don't really remember.

"I can't really test it until, you know, we have to use it," she says, "but it's passed every single other test I possibly could have run it through with flying colors."

"Why can't you test it?" I ask her. 'Cause, that's kind of a scary idea, going into space without knowing if the ship is gonna work. You suffocate out there, you know. Scary.

"I think the launch of a Capsule Corp ship into space would be a little conspicuous, don't you?" she says, and I just kind of keep looking at her. "You know, like, I sort of want to keep it a secret. The last thing I need are clients trying to talk me into building _them _a spaceship."

"Oh," I say.

"So," she says, "if we need to get away from the Saiyans, well…hopefully…we can." Then she raises her eyebrows at me and shrugs her shoulders. "Besides, is there really that much of a difference between dying on Earth and dying in space? At least this way we have a chance."

"I'm fighting," I say, "I think we can beat them."

She grins at me a little bit. "Well, you'd better. Anyway, I thought I might show you a bit about how to run this, you know, just in case you change your mind…and I don't trust your father to press a button, let alone seven of them in sequence."

I smile back at her. 'Cause, I'm not gonna change my mind, but, it'll still be fun to learn. Maybe it'll be useful later…after we beat these guys. Maybe I can even help her build another spaceship! It would be fun. Then we could go visit Piccolo's home. "Was it hard to build this?" I ask her. It feels like a silly question.

"Of course it was, kiddo," she says, and she reaches down and ruffles her hand in my hair. "But you're smart, so I bet you'd catch on pretty quickly if I ever showed you how I did it." Then she looks down at me, with her hand still in my hair, and looks me over. "And that, Gohan, might be the only thing that saves you from being just like your uncle." Then she giggles a bit, and I do too, and she keeps looking at me with her eyes all kind of misty, like Mom's when I first came in the door, before she got mad at me, when she was still so happy that I came to visit. "You do look so much like him," she finally says. I nod, and think of that one time Raditz looked in that puddle and saw we looked like each other. Then she pats my head one more time. "You're really something else."

I dunno what to tell her, looking at me like that, but then I get an idea for how to make the sort of weird quiet go away. "Can I see the inside of the ship now?" And without saying anything else, just grinning like she has been, she presses this button on the side of the ship and the ramp slides down to let us in.


	26. I, 26: Raditz

NOTE: Guys, I can't apologize profusely enough for the delay. It was an awful combination of school keeping me busy and my continuing obsession with Dragon Age sucking up some of the time I should've been spending on this. I hope that this one being slightly longer than usual, and containing a lot of plot developments, will make up for it at least a tiny bit. I also hope that the chapter's halfway decent, since I feel like I've gotten rusty. (And what a bad chapter to get rusty on!)

I don't know how many more chapters it'll be before Part I comes to a close—maybe six?

Thanks to all of you who've left reviews. Hopefully henceforth I will be better about keeping my updates more frequent (this will most especially start happening in about a month and a half, I think, when the semester ends)—and yes, the reviews do help with that. You should pressure me into working faster!

I hope you enjoy the chapter!

…

I'm about to toss the scouter off of my face after stopping Bulma's signal from coming through when more noise fizzles in my ear. She _can't _have built a second scouter with a different signal, surely? She wouldn't have planned for…

"Namek, hm?" Aw shit, it's Vegeta. "And you say there are dragonballs there?"

"Thanks!" says Nappa. "You're way closer to us than that Earth place is

anyway!"

"Nappa!" I hear Vegeta snap. "Anway, Raditz, I—"

Shit, shit, shit. This always happens. This _always _happens. Damned scouters. I tear mine off and stomp it beneath my boot into lots of tiny little pieces and to keep myself from thinking of what crazy shit might go down if I don't get outta here in time, I look back at the village I've been sitting outside of for a while.

A good long while.

'Cause I'm a little scared to attack—I mean—that particular Namekian who found me the last time might kill me if I do it again, and the fat one said…something or another that gives me the impression there's something else I oughtta be doing. Problem is, I haven't a single fucking idea what that could be. So I was figuring on gathering up these balls and wishing to find out what.

Thing is, now that I know I gotta use a wish to get back to Earth, what with the damned ship being not finished or whatever Bulma said…

About the only other thing I can do is…_talk _to somebody. Ugh. But it's better than dying. And anyway, I need the dragonballs and somehow I gotta do it without killing somebody.

"You!" I shout to one of the Namekians that's carrying a basket of water past me. He stops and looks at me curiously, but I see he's shaking a little…clearly heard of what I did to the nearby villages. Then it occurs to me I don't got anything to say, so I think something up. "Does this village have a dragonball?" I ask.

"Yes," he says, "but I am certain that the village elder will not allow you to take it without the Great Elder's permission."

All right, I can play this game. "I talked to that guy," I say. The Namekian's eyes narrow a bit like he don't believe me.

"Of course," the Namekian says, and then, "You know, if you would have killed him, somehow, the dragonballs would cease to work." Aw, cute, he's trying to save the fat guy's ass.

"Right," I say, chewing over a couple ideas in my head before I come up with a good one and add, "like the ones on Earth." Which has him a little more interested, I see. But I shrug and move on past him like it don't mean a thing to me, and sure enough he starts following me.

"You said you talked to the Great Elder?" he says from behind me.

"Sure did," I say, and I keep walking, through the village and around other Namekians that keep giving me funny looks.

The one guy keeps after me. "And…and Nail didn't…"

"Didn't kill me, no," I spit out. This one is starting to make me think of Kakarrot and I try to shake the thought outta my head before I turn around and crush him on principle.

Now the guy stops. "Did he say that you had his permission to gather the dragonballs?"

I mull that one over. "Hinted at it," I finally say. Hell, maybe this is how I'll manage it. So I figure I may as well sugar-coat it a bit. "He knew I was gonna try to gather 'em and didn't say a damned thing about not doing it," and a pause, and, "just so long as I don't kill no one."

At that the Namekian's eyes seem to light up. Seems we got a common interest of not dying. That his oversized leader instructed me not to do it seems to mean something to 'im, I guess. But he still seems a little wary, what with how I sort of took out a good chunk of the people who live on this planet before I got caught, I guess. "Dende," he says, still looking at me. I'm about to tell him that I don't care for a lesson in his stupid language when a little thing comes bumbling over, practically tripping over his own feet.

"Yes, sir?" he says all quiet-like, trying not to look at me. I grin my toothiest grin at him and he looks like he wants to bury his little green face in this guy's clothes and wish me way.

The older one is still looking at me as he talks to the kid (or maybe he ain't a kid, I don't know how it works with Namekians, but if that's not what he is, he sure as hell is acting like one…like the whelp when I first kidnapped him). "Take this one back to the Great Elder," he says, "and when—_if_—you hear it from the Elder's own mouth that he has permission to gather the dragonballs, guide him on this quest."

The boy nods and looks at me carefully, like he thinks he can make me think he ain't scared out of his wits. "You c-can fly, right?" I hop up into the air, maybe pushing the air out from other me a little harder than I oughtta, just to see him flinch away. eHHe takes off himself, and I snort at him to make sure he knows full well that I don't appreciate having to wait up for him. Then he speeds up a little, and we're clipping along.

…

"Great Elder," the kid, Dende, says.

"Ah," says the fat guy, "you have returned so soon?" Not like I can tell at all where he's looking, but I'm assuming it's at me. Crazy fucker looks pleased at first, 'til the kid explains about the dragonballs and he sobers up a bit. "Yes, he has my permission," he says. Kid nods and we start leaving. Then on our way out I hear, "I will see you later."

…

You know, gathering the damned things didn't take nearly as long as I'd thought it would with this kid by my side. It was just a matter of flying from village to village, letting everybody who poked their little noses into it know that I had the almighty fat guy's permission. Seems this is a weird occurrence on this planet. Still nobody bothered asking what I was wishing for. Well, not 'til we got 'em all.

"What are you going to wish for?" the Dende kid asks me as he sets them around in a circle, looking at me in this way likes he's got hopes but at least knows well enough to expect the worst. Maybe he ain't actually a kid. Then again…

"Why should I tell you?" I say, rolling one of the balls underneath my boot just to piss him off. Or maybe just fluster him, 'cause his cheeks get all flushed when he realizes he's gotta ask to pull it out from under my foot. Instead I kick it over into the circle. If I gotta wait 'til the kid musters up the courage to ask, I might be here all day. Or all…whatever. All I know is, I gotta figure things out before Vegeta and Nappa get here.

"Because I have to translate the wishes to Namekian," he says, "so that Porunga can properly grant them."

"Oh," is all I say. Then, "Wait, wishes?"

"Is that not why you've gathered the dragonballs?" he asks, suddenly all in a panic like he did something wrong.

"Ones on Earth just have one wish," I say, and suddenly I can't hold back just about the biggest grin I've been able to manage since coming here.

"Here you have three," he says, "but only if you need all three, otherwise you should…"

You know, feeling like you've actually got a plan for how things are gonna go is a great feeling, and one I ain't had the privilege of very often. Now I suspect it might backfire just to spite me, but a guy's gotta have hope. After being stranded on a backwater planet for however the hell long it's been, maybe the gods have decided I deserve a little more luck this time around. "I think I will," I say. "Yes."

"All right," he looks doubtful. "I guess the Great Elder must have approved, to have allowed this," he mumbles to himself.

"I didn't tell—" I stop and thank the gods that for once my mouth actually stops moving _before _I regret saying something. "Never mind."

He shrugs and seems to be all fidgety with his little green hands wringing themselves for a while before he spreads them over the balls, and chants something in Namekian. I figure, hell, maybe I'll be prepared for the giant fucking dragon to burst out this time…but no, it ain't so. What's more, this one is different from the one on Earth…and, I can tell from his first words, much less of a sadistic bastard.

"Greetings," he says, "What three wishes may I grant you? Speak them now."

"Um," the kid looks to me.

"This is the only one I need for right now," I tell him, feeling all clever for realizing this ahead of time. "I need to know what I need to do here to gain the most strength."

"Hm," he looks at me he's trying real hard not to treat me like I'm crazy. "It's…an odd…wish…" he mumbles, "how to phrase it…" After a moment, he looks up to the dragon and chants something.

The dragon chortles. Maybe I was wrong about the sadistic bastard part. When he finally stops his laughing, he says, "You must go to the Great Elder, the one who created me."

Well, ain't that fucking convenient. Dende don't look terribly surprised, like there was something he knew and I didn't and maybe I shoulda said something to him before about this being my wish. "That's all for now," I say. "Can I make my other wishes after my," and I can't keep in a growl, "visit?"

"I," Dende says, "I don't know. I'll…I'll stay here and make sure nobody makes any wishes," he volunteers. "If anybody contests it, they need only know the Great Elder gave you permission," it sounds like he's trying to convince himself, "and then they'll leave me alone, and won't cause any trouble." He nods. "Right. Yes."

"Unless Vegeta and Nappa show up," I say. He looks like he's about to jump out of his skin at the thought of somebody he don't know coming by and challenging him, but it ain't my problem—I'm in the air rocketing back toward that damned rock tower and he's way beneath me, quivering in his little boots.

…

"Ah," the fat guy says. "And surely this time you know why you are here."

"Only know I gotta be here for something," I cross my arms to make it clear I ain't too pleased that he seems to have known the whole time that I'd have to come here for something or another. The stronger Namekian, Nail, looks at me with narrow, suspicious eyes.

"Where's Dende?" he asks.

"Guarding the dragon," I say. He rolls his eyes.

The Great Elder guy clears his throat and Nail looks away. "So you do not understand quite why you are here," he says. "But it matters little; you will soon enough, after all. And have you thought of your home at all?"

Weird question. "Tried to avoid thinking on it much since the damned meteor shower," I say.

"Ah," is all he says back.

"So why the hell am I here?" I ask. Let's get on with it, before Vegeta and Nappa blow me up for summoning the dragon without them. Vegeta's a bastard enough and Nappa'll do whatever he says. I don't stand a chance in hell unless, for one thing, I can figure out how to get real strong, real fast.

The big Namekian finally says, "I wish you would have realized it yourself, but I feel our time is running short." Pauses. "You have latent powers, son; powers that you may realize in the distant future, or that you may not. I believe you will use them well—I will draw them forth for you, bring them from beneath your consciousness to its fore."

"Fancy talk," I say, "so you're gonna make me stronger?"

"That is," he seems to consider things, but hell if I know what he's actually doing. Maybe he fell asleep. "That is a part of it."

"Sign me up," I say.

"Then come," and I get closer, and he puts his damned hand right where he'd had it the first time, like he coulda done this all at the beginning, the fucker. As his hand settles in this weird feeling comes over me, and I start thinking about shit without trying, about what's maybe going on on Earth right now, about what I'm gonna do to Vegeta if he tries to blow it up, and then I'm thinking about Kakarrot and his whelp and what it might be that makes 'em so different. I keep trying to think but then my insides bubble up, soapy lava in my innards with the bubbles popping and reforming at the pit of my stomach, and wind around my skull, wind around my brains, wind around keeping me from thinking straight and wind saying things, hot lava wind saying,

_Stop him,_

And,

_Don't let that bastard get you too,_

And,

_You ain't gonna wanna face us in Hell if you fail us._

Hot lava wind inside me, inside all of me, racking through every little thing I ever thought, deciding whether I oughtta have thought it, pushing me around and then getting all sucked back up into my gut where it tickles up my spine in the unpleasantest of ways, like I'm never gonna get used to it, like it was there since before I was a whining ball of flesh and longer yet before the only four Saiyans left somehow deemed me the blight of our race. Like there's something about…

"There," the fat guy lifts his hand off me, only now it feels more like the farther his hand gets off my head, the more weight is pressing me down, heavier on my shoulders than those weights Bulma designed for my new armor. Is this it? Is this…

But I _am _stronger. Strong enough to beat Vegeta? I can't be sure. I need to…

"You'd best hurry," I hear from the giant Namekian beside me. "Or you will lose your last two wishes."

…I need to get the fuck back to that dragon.

…

That Dende kid looks at me like I'm crazy—maybe I'm that much faster than before—or maybe it's that I'm shouting before I've even landed. "My next wish is to get my tail back!" I say, and it ain't just to be safe that I'm all in a hurry and all in a panic, naw, it's because by now I can _feel _Vegeta and Nappa getting closer to the planet.

"Your…tail?" he asks.

"Yes, dammit!" is all I can say, trying to press my power down, but now I've got all this extra hot feeling in my veins, and the voices that are still muttering at me underneath it, it's tougher—like trying to quiet a crowd a' drunkards, maybe.

He looks like he ain't so happy about that wish—maybe it seems too _frivolous_—but he must pick up on that something's gonna go down if he don't hurry up, 'cause he shouts it up to the dragon, who obliges. I'm waiting for that feeling of everything being right, and then—then there it is. I whip it back and forth a few times and try to shake the feeling that something ain't quite the way it's supposed to be. Did the dragon fuck it up? But there's no time to fix it now—I can actually see the goddamned pods breaking through the atmosphere, and soon's I manage to open my mouth for the next wish, they crash.

I think, everything's gonna end soon unless I get outta here, but then, what are those fuckers gonna do to this planet? No better than what I did, I guess, and I imagine this kid crumpling down beside me as they blast him, but then he's the brat…Gohan—I grab Dende by his robes. "Take us both to the planet Earth!" I tell him. He looks at me like I'm crazy, and we hear an enraged shout from over where the pods landed—Vegeta can see the dragon from there, I'm sure, and I bet he's figured it out. "Now!"

He stutters and then shouts it up to the dragon, who's gone only just before we are.

…

And, thank the gods, it worked.

First thing's first, I've gotta take this kid to…somewhere. One of the other Namekians, maybe. He looks at me with the widest eyes, like he don't know what to say about what he's done.

"You woulda died," I tell him.

"The Great Elder…" is all he says back. Shit, I really hope Vegeta and Nappa don't off the guy. Those dragonballs could be useful later. But there was no time…right? I couldn't have…

"I'm gonna take you to this Namekian called Piccolo," I say, 'cause, hell, I feel for the kid, "and my brother's," okay, damn, that came out even bitterer than I'd thought it would, "whelp, called Gohan."

"What should I…" he starts, "what should I…do?"

I shrug. "Not die?" Always been a good plan for me.

When we land near where I could feel Gohan's ki, _surprise, surprise_, there's Kakarrot. He looks just about as pissed as I feel to see him again, after all this time—not that it's been so long but—it sure as hell feels like it. "Raditz," he snarls at me, like I did something wrong. Oh, right, the dragonballs, stealing Bulma's shit, all that. And maybe he's still bitter over me killing 'im.

"Don't fuck with me," I tell him, snarling right back. His whelp looks like he's about t' jump between us, but before I can stop him, Kakarrot moves in front of him. The little Namekian, he runs over and takes cover behind some boulder nearby.

"You're stronger," is all he says, and he don't look so excited about it, which, based on what Bulma's mentioned here and there, ain't his normal behavior. "And you have your tail."

"Somebody's gotta kick Vegeta's ass when he gets here," is all I tell him.

He gets what I'm trying to say. "I can handle it just fine."

The lava through me flows hotter, but it's like I'm gonna retch because of it. And there's no way this ain't gonna break into a fight, with how thick the air is, and, shit, I'm ready. I may even be stronger than this turncoat bastard…than…than Kakarrot.

So it's no surprise when he takes a swing at me, the two Namekians and his kid looking on like they know better than to stop it for now. He ain't expecting me to duck away from his fist and plant my own in his gut, then smack his face so's his body gets jerked to the side and tumbles into the open plain just to the west. It feels great, it feels—

—Feels like a blur, like the entire series of blows is just a matter of half a second, and maybe it is, but as my skin boils hotter I start feeling sicker. When he slugs me a nasty blow with some _ki_ in his hand, I grab his shoulders, and am struck by how much _smaller_ he is than me, but hell, he's my _little _brother, what do I expect—I grab his shoulders and heave him over underneath my body weight 'til he's pinned against the grass, my knee falling on his gut before I readjust myself to crouch over him and get ready to lay a few blows across his face. I lean in close to get a good look at the horror and concentration on his face, like he's gonna pull something crazy outta his sleeve to save his sorry ass. But I still can't keep back a grin—is he thinking of how he died? I could do it again, even, right now, and without even thinking about it, my hands drift over either one of his ears, getting ready to snap his—

_Shit_, but just like when the old Namekian started drawing out my power, I feel wind over my shoulders, and voices, saying things, screaming, and my eyes pry themselves open past all the wincing the wind is causing, and it's like I'm just now seeing the bastard beneath me. His eyes are all steely like knows, _knows _he ain't gonna die, and I know it too, and I see somebody in him—my father—or is that one of the voices over my shoulder—

And my tail is throbbing with pain just about as bad as my head, and I push what probably sounds like "I can't" past my teeth and that's it, and I roll off of him, and my head is pounding with weird thoughts that ain't mine, that he ain't the one that's gotta die, and he ain't the one I gotta worry about, and I damn well better let him go.

And of course he ain't the one I gotta worry about—it's Vegeta. Vegeta and his goddamned scouter, and now he really does have a reason to kill me, and now I really do have a reason to kill him, only—

Only…oh. _Shit_. The scouter…the dragonballs…Vegeta overheard—_the goddamned scouter—_and now he's too far away to get here by when that old coot Kami said he'd die, which means…shit, shit,_ shit_. It ain't gonna be Vegeta and Nappa. Never was gonna be.

_Freeza_.


	27. I, 27: Bulma

NOTE: I confess, I didn't even read over this once because I was so eager to post it. I am soooo sorry it took me so long to get back to this story. My classes kind of ate my life and I've spent the past couple weeks since the end of the semester just being flat-out lazy.

But, I think with your help, I can seriously ramp up the rate I put chapters out this summer. Drop a little review telling me what you think! You have no idea how much your comments help motivate me (and with me not taking any classes this summer, nothing can stop me from writing, bwahahaha!).

I hope there aren't a kajillion typos, and I hope you find this chapter satisfactory! Go easy on me for this one, haha…I'm rusty. (Also, sorry it's really short. I wanted to post something so you know I'm back to work on this!)

…

The day was good. After finishing the ship, I'd moved on to fancying it up. I finally let my father put that godforsaken coffee machine—sorry, _espresso _machine—in the ship. I got it painted up. It's _perfect_. I ran some more tests. _Perfect._ I'd wager my life on this thing being spaceworthy, which is good, because I might just have to. Really, really don't like thinking about the reason I've been in such a hurry to get it done anyway…about the Saiyans, and the possible destruction of the Earth, and…

But back to my perfect ship. It has a nice paint job. I got the best beds. (Though I had to revise my order to bunk beds—when I realized that if we use it to escape the Saiyans, it might be more than just a pleasant cruise for two. Damn.) Hell, I even commissioned some nice art for the interior. If I have to flee the Earth, I will do so in comfort and style.

I'm humming to myself as I think about how much profit I could make on these if we _do _live—think of the wealthy families going on vacation! Think of the honeymooners!—when somebody has the balls to bust through my ceiling a ways down the hall. I'm about to shriek _SON!_ as that will cover both of the most likely culprits (Gohan visits more, but Son is way more likely to bust through the ceiling; the kid knows better).

But no—as the dust clears, it's the man himself, Raditz. I'm grinning and trying to decide on the appropriate punishment when he beats me to it (but, damn, I've got an excuse, right? Him being a space alien with superpowers, and so on). He crushes me against the wall and looks equal parts panicked and horny (which, given the suddenness of his appearance, and our position, is probably about how I'm looking). He digs his nails into my arms and for a second the scratchiness of his chin (did he ever shave before? I don't remember seeing him do it, but, he must have) completely distracts me from the fact that he's kissing me. "Shit," he's muttering through both his and my lips, "shit, shit, shit. Bulma."

I try to make a mouthy comment about is it the end of the world or something? But my mouth is fairly occupied and I'm kind of busy plotting out the area in my head to figure out the nearest private room and how I can goad him in there. Not that it would probably take much.

He's breathing against my neck like he's going to die and I suddenly realize that I didn't even look, when he burst in, to see if he was injured—from what I can see out of the corner of my eye, he _does _look pretty awful. "Are you okay?" I manage. I swear on Kami's ever-shortening lifespan, if the man dies while macking my face…

"No," is all he says, hoisting me up closer to his level by my thighs, his hands and forearms forming something of a seat, the wall its back.

"Then maybe you should—" I start to say, admittedly a bit halfheartedly. If he's feeling well enough to press his hips up like…

"No," he cuts me off before I could think of finishing the sentence.

So instead I switch to a cheeky, "—Find a bed."

To this he growls and lifts one arm from my thigh to hold me against him as he flies us up through the hole he made in the ceiling. I guess at least it got used more than once. We're on the same floor as my room and he practically shoves me in once we get there. I'm about to lecture him on how I'm slightly more fragile than somebody with at least an inch of muscles padding any given part of my body (and that I am slightly less thickheaded than he is) but when our eyes lock, I see he looks…different. He didn't eat well, I decide, at this place he was at, at Namek—and maybe that's part of it, maybe his face is a little gaunter. But that's not the whole of it…his eyes look desperate. Desperate for what, I don't know—I don't know how the hell he got here (because he _does _have his tail back, and I _know _it couldn't have grown back) or why he's so beat up, bruises all over his face and his half-exposed chest, crusted blood—some areas still dripping. His eyes shiver in his sockets, not unlike what I've seen in Lunch when she tries to keep from sneezing, but—well, perhaps he's just tired. Sleep-deprived, beaten by…I don't know. Somebody he ran across. Did he—did he run into the other Saiyans on his way back? Surely not…surely…

But either way, he looks desperate. His eyes pin me on the spot, the only fix to whatever has got him in this state. "Look, I," I start to say, trying to think of something to remind him I'm human, and he can't try to pull those crazy Saiyan things on me just yet. I've been working out but there's a difference between _well-toned_ and _might accidentally rip your arm off_.

"Give me this," he says, and his eyes stop twitching. "Just…" He's very quickly right in front of me, his scruffy face rubbing into my collarbone as he kisses my neck.

I try to get a good look at his face. "Explain," is all I say. I'd be happy if he explains anything at all—why he's so flustered, maybe (I mean, I know I'm hot, but this is different than how he was before), or even what the hell he means by "give me this."

"I don't want to die," he says, or maybe _whimpers_, into the crook of my neck. He mutters something else—_voices_?—and I'm afraid to ask him to repeat himself. He seems…not in control. And not in a way that makes me think he'll throw me across the room; more like he'll crumple to the ground if he can't find his comfy spot on my bed. He grabs my shoulders and bends me back toward the bed, crawling onto me and kissing me with the ragged breaths with which only desperate men kiss.

"Raditz," I say, and he likes this. He gives me plenty of excuses to continue.

…

"Okay," I say once our breathing has returned to normal rates. "So, welcome back, and what the hell was that all about?"

He grins a little bit—I take it I managed to lift his spirits with a few of those maneuvers—but it fades quickly. "We're basically fucked," he says.

"I noticed," I try to sort out the more rebellious clumps of my hair for emphasis. (And somehow, even his hair has managed to be messier.)

"Not like that," he insists before conceding, "well, like that too, but I mean it."

"Does this have anything to do with why you look like you were only recently somebody's punching bag?" I ask, nudging at one of his scabbing wounds.

His eyes flash through a few emotions, but he seems to decide to keep it light. "Oh, trust me, Kakarrot looks every bit as bad as I do."

"You fought _Son_? When did you get back? Damn it, Raditz, _how _did you get back?" I give him my best _you've got some explaining to do _glare, which, compared to whatever seems to be freaking him out so much, seems to make him laugh.

"Namek's dragonballs had three wishes," he says first. "So I used one to get back. I fought Kakarrot because he's a stupid bastard who doesn't realize what he's up against. And we're fucked because it turns out it ain't the Saiyans that're gonna be causing the death the Namekian foresees. That basically cover it?"

I'm a little to speechless to answer. Okay, time to process through that real quick. Three wishes…that's how he got his tail, too. What did he do with the other wish? Maybe that's how he knows this other thing is coming. All right, Son taking a swing at him soon as he arrives—I can maybe see that. Maybe. As for the threat not being the Saiyans… "Who is it, then? Who's coming?"

"Freeza," he speaks through gritted teeth. I think he gathers from my blank look that this means nothing to me, aside from sounding vaguely familiar. He breathes deeply and explains. "You know how I left to get stronger in case me and your friends and the whelp Gohan combined ain't enough to take on Vegeta?" I nod. "Well he'd never admit to it, but Vegeta—and mind you, he's fuller of himself than you are—" I open my mouth in protest (something like "so basically as full of himself as _you _are?"), but he continues, "he shakes in his tiny little boots over the thought of fighting Freeza."

I think he's expecting me to turn an unhealthy pale, but he's probably forgotten that I, as a normal human being, have absolutely no concept of what that could possibly mean. "Yikes?" I say.

"Look," he growls, "now your planet's only about a thousand times more likely to get blown up, is all."

"So we should get out of here," I suggest. "I've got one ship, maybe we could—I don't know—get back to Namek and wait to reuse those dragonballs—"

"If Vegeta and Nappa don't kill everybody there," he interjects. "Still…ain't a bad idea…run off and just get away…" he pauses and looks like he might start convulsing. He closes his eyes tightly, nostrils flaring, and he makes like he's trying to shake something off. When he opens his eyes again, he's got this resigned expression. "Then again, maybe they'll kill me if I do."

"Who? Freeza's men?" Whatever happened to Raditz, it makes him seem a whole lot crazier than he used to be, which is saying something.

"No," he shakes his head. "Shit, you…don't remember what I said, do you? About the voices?"

"Hm," I glance at the ceiling, "was that before or after you had me pinned against the bed?" And then I turn to him and really look at him—his sort of half-starved state, all beaten up, now even sweatier (and smelling just about as bad as he looks)—and I get the feeling that I can't spend too much longer pretending that something serious didn't happen.

"Long story short," he sighs, "some weird fat Namekian made me more powerful. But ever since then, I got these—now don't start looking at me like that—these _voices_ in my head."

"Anyone in particular?" Scientist mode. "An alternate personality, or is this like an internal 'good versus evil' battle, or someone from your past, or…"

He just shrugs at me. "Like a bunch of half-drunk bastards egging me on, sometimes," he pauses, "or else when I do something they don't like, it's like, some…mass a'…rage…like…some guys on a crazy rampage with somethin' to prove." He looks like there's something he's not saying, and I'm really tempted to press it, but I won't—for now. I just raise my eyebrows. Honestly, both of those descriptions don't sound too different from something _he'd_ do, but what do I know?

A crowd, though? Strange. I don't know much about psychological…problems…but this sounds…troublesome.

At least it makes sense now, that look of his. Suddenly he's much less prepared to fight whatever's coming to Earth (though come to think of it—he has his tail—why did he come back? Oh, I know why, of course—I just wonder if he does). Suddenly he has people in his head, apparently telling him what to do. Talk about getting the rug yanked from under you.

"We'll figure it out," I tell him.

"I have to fight Freeza," he mutters.

"Don't be stupid," I say. "We'll leave. I'll find out how to cloak us. This Freeza will never find us."

He opens his mouth to argue with me, but a soft rap at the door replaces the pause and he shifts his focus to it, snapping his mouth shut.

"Um, Raditz? Bulma?" It's unmistakably Gohan. "Can I come in?"


	28. I, 28: Gohan

NOTE: Thanks to all of you who welcomed me back. The review reply function seems to be…not working. So if you reviewed and I haven't replied, that's why.

Meant to get this out earlier, but it was a busy weekend. I'm not quite sure where I'll end Part I and start Part II (I have a few options), but either way, the end to this part should be coming relatively soon, as long as I can write these chapters at a decent rate. If you knew what's in store, you might be as excited as I am!

…

I hear a little bit of rustling around; I guess it's them getting settled or something. They whisper a few words to each other and I try not to listen because Mom always said it's not polite to eavesdrop. But still I can tell on accident that there's a whole lot of giggling. Then Bulma answers the door, messing around with her hair while she steps over to the side to let me in. "What brings you here?" she asks me.

Really it's 'cause Raditz showed up and beat my dad up and ran off quick and then his power level was going all crazy. I'm worried. But, I don't think he really wants me to say that, 'cause Piccolo also doesn't like it when I tell him I'm worried about him. I guess it's something like kids aren't allowed to be worried about people. So I just tell her ('cause it's also true), "I wanted to say hi to Raditz since he's back."

"Sure," she says, and I look past her and I see he's putting his beat-up armor on. Bulma says something to him about making more armor, but he doesn't really say that much back because he looks like he's trying to figure out something to say to me.

Then he finally says, "Sorry, kid," while he keeps looking at me.

"Huh?" is all I can come up with. It's not like I didn't want him to come back or something, and…oh wait, I bet… "You mean for how you beat my dad up?"

He just kind of grunts. Bulma just shakes her head at him. "I'm sure he's sorry." Then she gives him this kind of look that I've seen my mom give Dad sometimes, that makes him go all quiet. I keep thinking he'll say something anyway, 'cause, I always thought Mom was way scarier than Bulma and, well, and Dad kind of feels worse when he gets those kinds of looks than Raditz would, but I guess I was wrong 'cause he stays quiet.

"I need to make sure somebody's repairing that hole in the roof," she says, squeezing past me out the door, giving Raditz another look.

"I'm happy you're back," I say. "I was scared something bad happened to you or you were stuck somewhere."

"Almost was," he says back to me, and he grins a little. "You know, I found your green friend's home planet."

"Yeah," I say. "What was it like?"

"There was a really fat one," he tells me, looking serious. "He had…fuckin'…messed-up powers." I'm pretty used to how Raditz swears all the time and it kind of makes me laugh now. I just wait and see if he says any more. "He did something weird to me."

"You're stronger," I tell him. There's no way he coulda beat Dad like that before…well, I don't know, I guess I couldn't sense energy the first time they fought so maybe he could have then. But anyway, it was…kind of crazy to watch. They both looked crazy. It's weird that Dad talks about how Saiyans are bad because when he was fighting Raditz they both had the same sort of look in their eyes that nobody else I've ever seen has, and how can he not like being a Saiyan when he's really definitely a Saiyan? I like being half-Saiyan. Oh, except…I forgot…Raditz wasn't there when I got my tail pulled off on purpose. He probably thinks I'm a bad Saiyan now.

"That's part of it," he says, and then he seems to notice what I've been thinking about when he looks at me again. "What happened to your tail?"

I fidget around a little bit trying to think of how I can explain it so it doesn't seem like I wanted to take it off even though I really _did _want to take it off but not because of why he's probably worried I did. "Um, I, it's sort of…" I'm looking down but I can feel his eyes sort of digging into me. Grown-ups have this way of digging their eyes in. I wonder if I'll be able to do that someday. "It's…I was sparring and, and I started really really hurting, and I just got this hunch it came from my tail," I say. "It sort of felt like burning, like…" I don't know what else to say. "I just felt like I really had to get rid of my tail, so I told Dad to pull it off." He seemed so pleased about it. I really hope sometime he'll understand how being a Saiyan isn't bad. Just because his brother was mean to him doesn't mean he should hate who he is. Right? I mean…I guess…Raditz did bad things…but Piccolo did too and now he barely ever does anything bad. I bet that if people just make Raditz feel like he could get along okay here he wouldn't kill a bunch of people or anything. He even saved that little Namekian, Dende. That has to mean something! Is Dad just mad 'cause it's his brother that's bad, and not just some other guy? I don't have a brother but I guess I would be sort of mad if I did and he turned out to be a real meanie. Still…

"I see," is pretty much all he says for a while. "I'm sure your father was pleased." I nod. "Do you miss it?" he finally says.

"Yeah," I say. "I really wish I could still have it. But I know it would just hurt more if I did. It was bad…it felt like my muscles were really tired and full of lava or something." He looks like he's thinking about it for a while and shrugs. His own tail is waving around a little bit. It gets still when he looks back at me, like he's thinking of saying something else. It always means something when Raditz gets quiet. It means he's thinking hard about something that he doesn't normally think about. I figured that out when I was training with him. Sometimes he would just _look _at me. I could never get him to say what he was thinking but real secretly I sort of would sneak it in some other time and he wouldn't notice and then he'd tell me. I feel like Mom wouldn't be happy about me tricking him like that, but maybe she would, since she doesn't like Raditz. Maybe she should talk to Bulma more and maybe Bulma could sort of tell her about how she and Raditz get along okay.

"Gohan," Raditz says. Usually he doesn't say my name, just calls me 'kid' or 'whelp' or 'brat' or something else, so I shiver a little bit. I don't know why.

"Yeah?" I say.

He sits down on the bed and pats the spot beside him. I sit down there and keep looking at him, 'cause, this definitely isn't how he normally acts. He seems really serious about something. He asks, "Have you been training hard?"

"Very hard," I tell him. "I wanna make sure Piccolo doesn't die when the other Saiyans come."

He breathes heavy and ruffles his hand on my hair. "Very brave of you," he says.

I nod. "Dad says I have to be real brave if I want to be a good fighter." He seems to think about that a little bit.

"You'd say you're pretty smart, right, kid?" he asks me. I kind of smile a little bit because it's important to not seem like you're better than somebody else but it's not like I don't know that a bunch of other people the same age as me haven't studied as much as I have. But I guess I haven't been studying quite as much since we've been training. Maybe they all caught up by now. He grins a little back, but the grin goes away pretty fast. "I don't want to trick you 'cause I don't think I could," he finally says. "But when the battle comes, don't fight."

"How come?" I ask. 'Cause before when we trained together he was always really proud of how I could learn so fast. I mean, he didn't say it like that, he said it like, 'Dammit, just 'cause you're good at copying me don't meant you're a better fighter'n me!' but that's pretty much the same thing, I think, 'cause that's juts how Raditz talks.

"It ain't the Saiyans coming," he says. He looks like he's thinking real hard about what to say after. "It's somebody much stronger. You've gotta leave, kid. Hell, I would too, only these damned voices in my head keep telling me I can't, or something. I don't get it."

"Um," I start, 'cause, I don't know how to say this in a good way, "no offense, but," then I think some more, "but I think just maybe I might sometimes be stronger than you. Plus I have to stay and help Piccolo." If I just left, and something bad happened to him, like Kami keeps saying it will, I'd feel…broken inside. I don't know.

"I'm stronger now, remember?" he says.

"But I'm really strong," I say back. I don't know what else to say. It's really true; that time my tail made me itch so bad, I thought for maybe just a tiny bit of a second I was stronger than Dad. I said that to him, and he said maybe I was, 'cause when Raditz first came I did something kind of like that too. He said he couldn't explain it that well but Piccolo said he thinks it might come from my feelings. It's kind of neat thinking my feelings could do that to me but also I sort of wish that I could just be really strong all the time, like Piccolo and Raditz and Dad. "Who's stronger than the other Saiyans?" I ask him all of a sudden, 'cause I don't really wanna keep going like we have been because there's no way he's gonna convince me not to fight to keep Piccolo safe and there's no way he's gonna like that I keep saying that. I know 'cause the same thing happens when Piccolo keeps telling me, stay on the side and don't do anything unless he tells me. He says it's strategy but I think he knows that I know that that's not it because he knows that I'm smart, and anyway, he didn't really give any good reasons for me to be on the side when I've been training really hard just so that I won't be on the side!

"Freeza," Raditz says, and the way it comes through his teeth is like he's shivering, and hissing it out.

"How come you never mentioned Freeza before?" I keep going. I mean, it seems like it would be important if there was somebody _even stronger _than this Vegeta guy!

He looks like he has thoughts rolling around for a little bit, by the way his head swivels this and that way on his neck while he stays quiet. "It didn't matter before. I didn't give a damn about him before."

I don't say anything because usually if you just let him, Raditz will keep on talking and talking and talking, especially if you ask him about himself. I learned that while I was training with him. But this time, he doesn't say a single thing. He just sits there on the edge of the bed, and then he starts rubbing his head like it hurts. This is a little bit like the times I talk with Piccolo—I think he's thinking a lot of things that he doesn't want to tell me. Finally he stands up. I'm about to ask him where he's going and he says, "Hungry. There was shit to eat on Namek."

"There—" I open my mouth and I probably look really confused, because I am.

"I mean there wasn't much to eat there," he explains with this little grumble he does sometimes. He looks like he's about to dash off when he adds on, "Do me a favor and check on that tiny Namekian. I don't know what I was thinking, bringing him here," he stops—probably 'cause he actually does know, 'cause that's just how he is—"but I did and now I don't want the thing getting lost. You know, in case your friend Kami can use him, or, something." And then he's gone.

…

I stretch my senses out to try to find Dende and he's not at the first place I look, which is where he was when I left to see what happened to Raditz. In fact, it took me a while to find him because he turned out to be all the way up at Kami's Lookout.

So I fly up there, though I'm pretty sure that since I can sense him (and his power level isn't as tiny as he is—it's not very big, but I can notice it…it's really distinct, I guess) there of all places, he's probably okay. When I land on the edge I see that over in the distance Piccolo and Dende and Kami are all talking. I don't really wanna interrupt them (it seems like I always do that!) but before I can hide myself or leave for a little while, Piccolo notices me, and jerks his head toward the others like he wants me to come and join in.

"Raditz told me to check on you," I tell Dende. We didn't really talk a lot earlier because I was in a hurry to find out what happened to Raditz, but he seems really nice. He's more like Kami than Piccolo, I guess, because he's nice to everyone instead of just a few people, and he seems more peaceful. Well, besides that he's really worried that something bad is gonna happen to…his family, I guess. He told me right before I left that where he's from, everybody is family, not just the people you live with or came from. Things sure sound different there, but it sounds kind of nice.

Piccolo looks like he doesn't believe me. "Did he?" he says, and when I nod he seems like he's putting that little bit in his mind or something.

"What are you guys talking about?" I ask.

"We were, ah—" Dende starts to talk, but then Kami talks instead.

"We were discussing Namek," he tells me with a nice smile. "It sounds wonderful. I only wish that I could visit one day," the last part he says right after sighing.

"I'm gonna save you guys," I tell him. "So that you and Piccolo won't die and then you can go to Namek if you want. Oh…" I sort of forget what I'm saying, because I used to be really sure about beating Vegeta, but Raditz seemed really scared of this Freeza even though he's all that much stronger than he used to be. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to tell anybody, but it seems important. "Um, Raditz says it's not gonna be those two Saiyans Nappa and Vegeta that we're going to fight, but instead somebody named Freeza. Raditz says he's way way stronger than Vegeta!"

"He's certain?" Piccolo asks. Even he looks a little scared.

"I, um," uh-oh, now I feel bad, "I don't know. I didn't ask. He seemed pretty sure but I guess I didn't ask why…"

"Then we need to look into it further," he breathes out a little, and keeps looking at me. "You need to find out what makes him think this. No need to do anything drastic if our foe is only the one we originally expected, instead of this 'Freeza'…if he even exists."

Kami shakes his head a little, but doesn't say anything. "We can keep talking later. For now, it sounds like you two will be quite occupied with your training. I shall continue to converse with Dende here." I was wondering if Dende knew how to fight at all, and that was why Raditz brought him back, but it seems like he can't. I guess it makes sense for him to stay with Kami. He'll be safer up here. And he looks happy. I hope I have time to talk to him again later…but for right now, I need to go talk to Raditz and find out what's going on. He seemed so scared…I don't think he's lying. But I guess Piccolo is right, how does he know for sure? Can he sense this guy from really far away? Or maybe Freeza is actually really close and we just can't tell, somehow? The more I think about it, the more I want to hurry back and sort things out.

"I'll come with you," Piccolo says as I'm about to take off; I guess he knows right where I'm headed. "I need to hear this for myself."


	29. I, 29: Raditz

NOTE: Ah-hah! I thiiiiink after the end of this chapter, there will be two more left in Part I (possibly three). I hope you're enjoying the story so far; I'm certainly having fun writing it. Please, let me know what you think. Thanks (since I can't say it enough!) to everyone who has been reviewing, everyone who's added this story to their alerts/favorites, and in general to anyone who's reading it. Your support means a lot to me; I don't think this story would still be alive without it!

…

Somehow I got pushed into being the one to gather up everybody into someplace safe and let 'em know what's going on. Kakarrot, who's the one who knows all these people anyway, I guess thinks he's too good for that sort of thing, y'know; too important, too strong, gotta keep training an' all that like such a short time is gonna make a difference.

Granted, he's got most of his fighting buddies all together. I dunno how I like their chances. There's Kakarrot, who, while a terrible excuse for a Saiyan, is a halfway decent fighter—and that Namekian—Piccolo, I mean, not the pint-sized one that nearly makes me think a' Gohan—he's not bad either. Gohan's not bad, but he ain't fighting. No two ways about it. Now I don't doubt he couldn't take on some a' Freeza's goons (hell—might be he could beat me, but he's too shy to show me what he's really got in 'im, so I have no idea) but I'm worried he'll take offense at it and I know the kid can't take what Freeza dishes out even for stupid things like that (I saw it done to Vegeta one too many times—damned blueblood has too much pride to get a sense of how it ain't practical at all to get on the bad side of somebody who could kill you—but who am I to talk, about to fuckin'…fight Freeza…naw, I ain't gonna think about it—maybe I'll let Kakarrot take care of it, if he's so sure—I don't even know what I'm doing here—but I do—and I ain't—well—)

There's the others, the Yamcha guy who hates me like none other (I did steal a pretty good prize from him, so I s'pose that's reasonable). He ain't much normally, but I hear tell that when he used that technique Kakarrot learned in the afterlife, aside from just about killing himself he managed to triple his power in half a second. Could be useful, if he don't toast himself into little charred bits first.

There's one of the hairless guys, Tenshinhan, who at least don't hiss at me like a hurt little cat every time I come near (unlike Kakarrot and Yamcha). I wonder if that extra eye's got a purpose, or if it's just for show. He seems strong enough—nothin' to compare to me, naturally, especially not after that trip to Namek—and I wonder if he knows that power-multiplying technique. I've half a mind to ask Gohan to find out how to do it but turns out it ain't exactly the ideal thing for little whelps like himself to learn. Fine by me as he don't need yet another reason to hurt hisself.

There's Kuririn, the small human who tried to tell me off first time I tried to knock some sense into Kakarrot. He's got some sense about him, being scared shitless about this whole Freeza business (because, yes, I did go tell the others about it—wouldn't exactly be conducive to my not dying if they're not prepared—tho' the degree to which they listened to me seemed to vary greatly, as Kakarrot apparently doesn't give a damn about anybody's well being and goes off being all excited to meet his death, again, I guess—after I killed him the once, an' after we just about killed each other only a couple weeks ago).

There's also some little thing—human? I ain't about to guess—always hanging about Tenshinhan. Dunno if he aims to fight, but it'd likely be best for everybody if he just stays out of it. By the way they talk, his powers used to be somethin' worth considerin', but then everybody got stronger and he just got left behind. Apparently even that little hovering cat, Puar, used to be of some use to these guys. Makes you wonder just _what _these pathetic mudball-dwellers did before I showed up. They oughtta thank me.

Somebody who, from the sound of it the few times I was by there without getting shooed away by Kakarrot, ends up around there a lot—this chick Lunch—was already back at Bulma's so I didn't have to gather her up. When I started askin' about why she kept showing up with all the fighters when she wasn't really one herself ("sort of," everybody said, with these sheepish looks), everybody hemmed and hawed around like they didn't wanna admit while she was around, but lookin' at all of them, I'm gonna bet it had something to do with the three-eyed one. His face was redder'n Gohan's that time I corrected him about how his parents likely never _fought _in their bedroom. (Maybe if they did though, maybe Kakarrot's more a Saiyan than I thought—heh—unlikely.)

But still it was up to me to find that Dende kid and bring him over to Bulma's in case everybody's gotta try to run away, like we'll probably have to. (I mean, fuck—nobody's gonna be able to beat _Freeza_.) When I told that Kami guy what's going on, about Freeza and all that shit (I think he got wind of it from Gohan, but didn't quite learn everything), he was able to figure out closer to when we're all doomed. Meditation, and all that shit that Namekians are apparently into, and then he came back with an idea, and _damn _am I glad I came up to tell him.

Days. Fuckin' _days_.

Mostly beyond that it was a matter of figuring out where her parents ran off to. Once I found them (why the hell didn't she do this? "Important spaceship upgrades" my ass!)—in some sort of "resort"—they refused t' go with me. They said, if the world's ending they wanna have "fun." Well, I ain't gonna play the parent. Bulma wasn't too happy with me for that one. Her own damn fault for sending me on her errands, I told her, which, apparently, is her excuse for the distinct lack of pre-doomsday sex. When I pointed out what she was depriving herself of, she said why don't I just go back into space and avoid the ordeal altogether (at least, I think that's what she was trying to suggest, punctuated by lots of gestures that she clearly picked up from me, while she called her parents to try to kick some sense into 'em).

Which raises a good—naw—a stupid question. That's a stupid question. Not even worth thinking about, honestly.

…

"Gohan," I say to him the second he wanders into our old training area. I knew he'd find me there. There's no way he's been listening to me so far. Damned brat…

"Yeah?" he says, and tries to readjust his boots. Looks just like that Namekian's outfit sans the stupid cape and headpiece.

I dunno how to say it other than how I have been. "You ain't fighting. Not Freeza, not any of his guys. Got it? You stay out of it, kid."

He shakes his head. "You taught me all this stuff! I'm gonna use it. No way I'm gonna let Piccolo die if there's something I can do…"

Without even thinking I grab him by the shoulders. (Did he get a little taller? I guess whelps his age do that now and again.) "You fight him, you die, kid. Forget your friend. You ain't gonna make it; it's just a matter a' how long it takes and how painful it is. Got it? Just—go back and stay with Bulma. Your friend will understand. Hell, he'd—"

"—agree with you," the kid finishes, and pulls his shoulders out from underneath me with a little twist. "I know. But—I'm not gonna—" he seems all shaky, maybe with the effort of arguing, if he already fought this against the Namekian, "—I _know _I'm stronger than you and him think—I mean—the one time, when I still had my tail, and it _hurt_ but now that I don't have my tail, maybe if it happens again—"

"A lot to stake your life on, don't you think?" is all I can say. He's still shaking, like he wants to cry. Shit. That's something else whelps his age do, too, when everybody he ever knew is about to die right before his eyes. Kakarrot'll fight no matter what. Piccolo'll die if that Kami dies too, which he surely will if Freeza finds out about him and don't know that killing him will destroy the dragonballs. "Kid, just remember that nobody's life is worth as much as your own. If you're dead, that's _it_. There ain't no—no _honor _in _sacrifice_, when everybody's just gonna get mowed down anyway." How else can I pound it into his stupid little head?

"Then why are you still here?" he asks.

"That's a stupid question," I say. Well, it is. Not worth thinking about.

"No it's not," he says, and I wonder how it is he suddenly got so argumentative and stubborn. Or maybe I just forgot while I was on Namek. I don't know. "You can get on Bulma's ship. You and she and everybody else can just leave right now. Otherwise, you might die. Or _they _might die."

"Or _you_ might die," I—oops. Those words weren't in my head. Shit. He looks almost as confused as I feel by how that managed its way out, but he smiles a little. Better than crying, that smile, but not by much. "I mean…don't get cocky like your father. You can't beat this."

"But maybe _all_ of us can," is what he has to say back. And that's it. That's my exc—that's why I'm staying. _You don't stand a chance_, a voice that's actually my own says. But that's about the last thing I want to think about. So I just sort of nod—there's no way I'll talk the kid out of it, anyway, short of finding a way to physically restrain him. While I stare off into the woods that've gotten awful familiar over my time here, I feel something on my hand, and look down. It's the kid's little hand, resting against mine—cold and clammy, but somehow stronger than I woulda thought. He gives me this determined stare, and I nod again. I suddenly feel very chilly and very warm. I hate the way it shimmies down from my neck through the ground, into the ground, but I also lo—but it also feels kind of—well, anyway, it don't matter.

"Just…be careful, kid," I say, and it comes out quieter than I mean. "No use getting yourself killed before your Namekian friend is even in danger. Don't…do something stupid."

"Don't be silly, Uncle Raditz," he says, and my feet feel dug into the ground at the sound of it, and a huge grin spreads over the kid's face, "I won't do anything stupid; I'm smarter than you."

I can't hold back a snort of laughter—that's what I get for always telling him he's got more brains than me. (In the spirit of not ruining the kid's mood, I bite back a pretty hilarious crack about Kakarrot.) I didn't think I had it in 'im, always being polite—but good—he's learning. Good…

"I oughtta make sure Bulma doesn't want me to find anybody else," I tell him, before I feel any more stuck to the ground, or any more stuck to his clammy little hand. He nods and turns back as he's about to fly off to the others. "And, kid—" I start, and he turns his head to look at me, "thanks for…teaching me all that shit."

"Thanks to you, too," he says, "for teaching me all that…um…"

"No problem," I say, an' try not to laugh too hard. Then he waves, and he's off, and so, well, I'm off, too.

…

What do you do on the last day of your life? I sure as hell tried to avoid thinking about it before, but somehow it seems like there's more shit to take into consideration now. I try not to look at Bulma while I'm thinking about that. Of course she's been all in a fit of why don't I just take off with her if I think we can't win it, why don't I just convince everyone to run. I tell her I tried, and I tell her I wanna believe the kid is right, that somehow all of us combined can do something (I mean, hell—I've practically lost all grasp of where I stand—compared to Nappa, or Vegeta, or anyone else but whoever is here, and even then I wonder). And I tried once to explain to her about the voices, about every time I'm about to think maybe I oughtta just, I dunno, incapacitate the kid and drag him off with us and leave, run for our lives, they start yelling at me. I tell them they don't know shit, and why do they care so much, but I mean, they're fuckin' voices in my head, so it ain't as if they've been intent on listening to me so far, or they'd be gone.

She says she wants to test some things about those voices, and with the way her tone quivers is you can tell she's hoping there's a future. I've always been a fan of living, so I'd agree no matter what, but now there's _more_. Something says I have to live. It's probably those stupid voices, but I don't intend to think about it too hard anyway. Thinking too hard ain't my thing. Bad for you, you know. Bad for your sleep habits.

There's this dull ache I can already feel, of Freeza and his men getting closer, and I think about running, and I think about staying, and I toss around. Out of the corner of my eye, there's Bulma, and I notice that she's watching me…her eyes all glassy and wet, but she don't say a word.

She puts her hand inside mine, cold and clammy, like Gohan's, and scoots up to me, that stupid blue hair of hers brushing against my shoulder as she kisses my cheek. Everything in my head is still.


	30. I, 30: Bulma

NOTE: One chapter left in Part I after this. Eep! Once again the chapter is a little short (and you should probably expect the same of the next chapter as well), but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. (Er, maybe "enjoy" is the wrong word…oh well, you get it.)

Thanks to you all for your continued support, reviews, alerts, favorites, and all that. :)

…

I was never that much of a nail-biter, per se, because I hate ruining my nails like that. But this? This is an occasion for nail-biting.

I know I'm safe—I _think _I'm safe. I mean, the ship hasn't been formally tested, but I have every reason to believe that it works, and that I've got enough supplies capsulized for a reasonably sized group of us to get the hell out of here and far enough away to refuel and reload. (I just pray to anybody who'll listen that Raditz has the good sense to _not die_—which I don't think has ever been an issue before, but he's been acting funny lately—all _concerned _for me and Gohan and trying to hide it, and it's…_weird_.)

Lunch, the dear woman, has begged me to keep her at home with me even if she sneezes and insists otherwise. She's afraid her other side will try to chase down Tenshinhan and get caught in the crossfire, so to speak. She's been staying with me a lot lately, and while I haven't had time to figure out just what causes her to change when she sneezes (I mean—I've been a little busy with the ship and preparing for the almost-certain doom of the Earth, especially after Raditz's realization), I've realized just how hectic her life has been. See, I was always under the impression that she wasn't the brightest bulb in the box (which is still true, because I am—I just mean compared to everybody _else_), but it's more that she just…_chooses_ to be like that. It's tough to explain. I understand the usefulness of acting stupid, but she's not exploiting it in any way. Still, it's…nice. She's been helping me out around here a lot—just kind of naturally falls into this role of following me around and doing whatever I need. (I didn't notice at first, until once when I came down in the middle of the night to work and expected my tools to appear out of thin air beside me.)

So she's more or less safe, I think—she's agreed to let me lock her up, sort of, someplace her other half can't get out of. Since the blonde Lunch seems to always have a gun on her, I thought the best place would be something modeled after where I kept Raditz. But the area is still in shambles from before, and the last thing I have time to do is build it myself (or try to explain to someone else why I'm locking a perfectly innocent young woman in my basement). So I've settled for a simpler solution—handcuffs. We've tested it (and now that blonde Lunch is thoroughly _pissed _at me for doing so, the handcuffs are just as much a safety precaution for me as for her) and it seems to work well enough. Lunch and I have talked and while she argues that I probably know her other side better than she does (I get to _talk _to her, after all—Lunch only ever hears about what she does) I'm confident in her assessment that her other side is smart enough not to open fire while we're soaring through space.

Still, it makes me nervous.

I've done a little talking with blonde Lunch, but she's even more stubborn than I am, and if she doesn't want to talk, she won't. I can't say I don't admire her—it takes some serious balls to act the way she does around the people she's often with (on more than one occasion, Raditz has compared us, speaking softly of the guts we have like there's some secret about Earthling women that I'm not telling him). I wish we could get along better. Since blue-haired Lunch is turning out to be more than just a pretty face…I bet blonde Lunch is more than just a…a pretty face with a big gun.

I wish I'd had as much luck keeping Chi-Chi and the others here. I don't think I'll ever understand that woman—she's so worried that Son is going to die, but so certain that he's going to save us. I think it'd be a different story if him losing didn't mean certain death for all of us (if what Raditz said is true, that if Son and everybody loses this Freeza guy will at best wipe the planet clean of humanity, at worst blow the whole thing up, which he assures me has happened more times than he can count to places he decides aren't worth the trouble). It's like she thinks that if she comes over just as a precaution, she's admitting that Son might not make it. But she's always been proud and just a little superstitious (especially since she settled down with Son, it seems) and I guess I've done everything I can…I don't know. Is it awful that I'm tired of trying? I'm ready to just buckle down and get ready, and…and if she's too stubborn to just come over here then…then…

…

I'm woken up by the bleeping of one of the detectors I've been resting by religiously of late. It's finally picked up Vegeta and Nappa's signals—Raditz wanted me to look and see if they've left Namek, and given that they're finally in range of my equipment, I'd say so. Shit, wouldn't it be just our luck if they showed up at the same time as Freeza?

But the other big blob on the radar assures me otherwise (not that it's all that reassuring)—Freeza's definitely getting here first. Soon.

_Damn_.

Today.

…

I'm glad I'm not watching. I'm glad I wasn't around to notice Raditz leaving until he was already gone. I'm just…worried.

The tension in the air is palpable even almost halfway across the planet (predictably, Freeza crashed down by Son and his group—assuming, I think, that they were the ones in control of the dragonballs, being the strongest on the planet and all—or maybe he could just tell where Raditz was and thought he'd go from there). It's something about the electricity that flows off of these guys, the power and the heat, that messes up the winds and the clouds and the atmosphere when all of them gather together (and it's not unlike the way the skies get stormy whenever we summon Shenlong). I only hope it doesn't keep the ship from taking off, if we have to use it.

It's ready. I'm ready. Lunch is handcuffed beside me (poor girl), looking (rightly) scared out of her mind.

"I hope space is pretty," she says. "If we have to go, that is." Her voice quivers in a way uncharacteristic of her usual brightness and I feel even worse—like somehow it's my fault we're going through all this. I know it's not—if anything, it's Raditz's, but that doesn't exactly make me feel better, because it's only thanks to me and my foolish self that he's not dead yet.

But we'll make it. I know it. I didn't grow up to be this beautiful and successful just to die young. That's what I keep telling myself.

The idea is shattered out of my thoughts as somebody crashes in through the window. From where I am, I can't tell who, except that he looks too bloody and battered to have waited at the door, so I don't blame him. Hair's shorter—so not Raditz, and not Gohan—Son? No—as I pace up closer (cautiously, because I don't know exactly what this Freeza looks like, or what kind of lackeys he brought with him), though, I recognize a pattern of burn markes I've seen before, and then his face (if barely).

It's Yamcha, and he looks just like he did when he tried using that Kaio-ken technique that Son learned while he was dead—when he showed up and we had to throw him into what passed for a healing tank at the time. (Not that what I have now is perfect, but it's better. Raditz told me once that while it was less fancy, it did the job almost as well as the ones he knew—except that the fluid was a slightly different color and "tastes real funny." Eugh.)

"Yamcha!" I can't stop my hands from shaking as I flip him over. In some places, his skin is raw—second- or third-degree burns? And in areas around his arms and chest, his skin is almost completely gone, the tissues beneath exposed and blood seeping through. On the planes where his skin is still intact, most of his body hair is gone; there's still hair on his head, but it's missing in places. Some of the blank spots don't look like they came from the burns of the technique, but from…someone yanking them out. I shake more as I set him down to find some bandages, and then think better of it and instead find one of the carts I usually use to transport equipment, so I can carry him without dragging him across the floor. Bandages won't do him any good—he has to go in the healing tank, though I'm betting it'll hurt him like no tomorrow before the anesthetic kicks in.

But being hurt like no tomorrow sure as hell beats there _being _no tomorrow for him, so I think he'll forgive me.

"Bulma," he mutters as I move him as carefully as possible onto the cart.

Somehow hearing that he can still speak melts away the worry I didn't even realize had been pulling on my chest. "Shh," is all I can think to tell him. I wonder if his throat and mouth are burnt as badly as the outside of his body. What I want to know is how Son can handle this—is this what always happens? Or a side-effect if you use it wrong? Gohan once described that the danger was filling your body with too much power…I wonder if it feels like spontaneous combustion. I wonder if he would have blown up, if he'd pushed it too far.

"It's bad," he insists on whispering while we're on the way to the tank. I roll him into the elevator in front of me.

"You'll recover," I assure him. I hope he will…I think the tank has healed worse. This is worse than when it happened to him before, but the tank is better, so…it has to work, right?

He shakes his head and winces. "The battle," he tells me. Then, after some breaths so heavy and so rattling with pain and feeling that I almost retch, he adds, "That's why…I came here…to tell you…"

My knuckles are white. Whiter than baby-teeth and whiter than the sides of my eyes after a good night's rest—whiter than my mother's lilies and whiter than a ghost. White because I know what's coming.

I try not to look at the skin peeling off of him, or the sticky spots where blood has coagulated to make a new, red-brown skin where his real skin had been burned and torn away. "You have to go," he rasps out. "Now."


	31. I, 31: Gohan

NOTE: This chapter is the end of Part I. Worry not—I don't intend to take a break between this and Part II or anything. It will still be added to this story, so you don't need to check my profile for anything else as far as this story goes. You can look forward to some new narrators (and some old ones), but that's all I'm saying. ;)

Thanks yet again to everyone reading this story. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it thus far.

...

Dad was right to send Yamcha away to warn Bulma. I…I hope she gets away okay. And…and maybe she can help Yamcha out, because…because…

Because things are bad, _bad bad bad_, and we haven't even fought Freeza yet. He sits there looking all…smug and…people just keep…

First it was Tenshinhan—we all thought for sure he could take on this purple guy with funny little things like Piccolo's antennas coming out by his mouth—but then _bam_ and—and then he had a big hole through him like…like Dad did when…Raditz killed him. I shake the thoughts about that out of my head because I really really don't want to think of Dad dying because that can't happen and it _won't _happen, 'cause if he dies then…

…after Tenshinhan died, Chaotzu got so angry and sad and even though we kept telling him he shouldn't fight because he's for sure not strong enough, he leapt in and, and, exploded…

When Raditz said something really mean about him (which was an awful thing to do, calling him weak just for loving his friend so much that he died for him…but we all knew he shouldn't have gone in there…I don't know, I guess Dad knew that that was what he had to do, and that's why he didn't catch him on his way in)—when—after Raditz said the mean thing, Yamcha was so _furious _at him and took it kind of personally and went in after the purple guy himself.

I don't think we would have stuck around if we knew how bad it would've been. Maybe if we would've known from the start, Bulma would've built a bigger ship. We could've…all ran away and…and trained for a long, long time, and then came back and faced this Freeza guy. But I guess he must know where Namek is and what if all the people like Piccolo and Dende get killed? If we don't stop him…

When Yamcha got so mad he charged in himself and he did give the purple guy a real good match, and if it wasn't so scary it woulda been exciting to watch…but then the purple guy just about killed Yamcha the same way he did Tenshinhan. Yamcha got even angrier and he was all revved up and then he was using that Kaio-ken my dad taught him, and it was like fire was sucking him up but it wasn't enough, and then more fire sucked him up, and there was a huge blast and the purple guy was just _gone _like he got turned into dust. Another guy, with hair that kind of makes me think of spinach because of its color, got a little hurt and he was screaming about his face getting messed up. He was right about to really hurt Yamcha, or maybe even kill him, 'cause Yamcha sure couldn't move, but then Dad was right there socking the guy and Kuririn picked Yamcha up real carefully and brought him back to where I was before going back and helping Dad.

Dad shouted up to Yamcha to leave if he could fly, and have one of us take him or else, and he said tell Bulma to get away. And Yamcha could still fly, and Freeza's people didn't seem like they really cared about him since he was pretty much almost dead anyway and they were pretty distracted by this disk Kuririn made that can slice things up, and some of them got sliced up, so he got away okay. Before I looked back at Yamcha I saw Freeza looking pretty thoughtful and like maybe for just half a second he was worried, but I couldn't tell if he was looking at Dad or at the disk or what just then.

And when I looked back to Yamcha disappearing in the sky I saw that Raditz was also facing toward Yamcha and looked real worried—not angry, like Dad was when Yamcha was getting hurt so much, or when Tenshinhan died, but really just…sad. Then he looked back at me and it was like he noticed that he looked sad and his face kind of got like glass and he just ruffled his hand in my hair. He said to me, "It'll be okay, kid." And then a little quieter he also said, "You do the Saiyans proud." And then it was like he was just talking to himself because it was so soft, like he sort of hoped I wouldn't hear, "You do me proud."

Piccolo said that to me too, a few days ago. About him being proud, I mean—not about the Saiyans. Hearing it makes me…shiver, I guess. Like it means something extra. I don't know what.

And now the disk is still slicing through the air and most of Freeza's guys are shaking in their boots (that's how Raditz says 'scared'). Dad and Piccolo are doing a pretty good job of keeping clear of the disk while they fight the green-haired one, who was worried about his face.

Raditz even looks scared. He says that last time he saw these guys, they could squish him in half a second and it's tough for him to think he might even be able to hold his own against some of them, like how Dad and Piccolo are doing. I would be in there too but Dad made me swear that I'd wait until he let me. I get the feeling he won't, but I'll jump in if I have to, to save Piccolo…but if I do it right now, he'll just knock me out and tell Raditz or somebody to take me back to Bulma's too, and ship me into space and then Piccolo will…well, no, he won't…no. No. I'm not gonna let it happen and he's too strong. Too strong to just have…a hole put through him, or…or to get blown up. He said sometimes he can get back from those things okay but if the hole is too bad or if it goes through the right spot or if he gets blown into little bits he can't make himself grow back. Growing back is a neat power…I wonder if all Namekians can do it or if it's just something special Piccolo learned how to do.

Dad told Raditz to stay here and watch me, too, for now. I think maybe partly he thinks Raditz is still with these guys, or something, and he wants to be able to keep an eye on him, because he swore to me that if I powered up all of a sudden and I was still by Raditz, he'd be right there to save me. I think if I powered up all of a sudden he'd be there no matter what, but for some reason he just mentioned Raditz.

I don't think Dad knows how much me and Raditz care about each other or he'd never say something like that. That would be like if he thought that Kuririn was going to hurt me. I don't get it…even way back when Piccolo took me away to train me he trusted Piccolo to not hurt me too bad.

"What do you know about the green-hair guy?" I ask Raditz.

"His name is Zarbon," Raditz says, and it looks like he's in a little pain just thinking about him. "There's a reason he's always standing by Freeza—he's _strong_."

This Zarbon guy right now is dodging past all of the punches Piccolo is throwing but then he's not expecting a blast from my dad. Then he tries to wipe the dust off of him but _whoosh_, out of nowhere comes Kuririn's disk. Zarbon ducks down but only just in time, and his cape and his braid trail behind. The disk slices right through his cape, then right into his braid partway down.

I guess he really liked his braid because he's screaming, screams that make me a little shaky and Raditz is putting an arm around my shoulders and I'm not sure if it's to make me feel better or because his knees are shaking too because _boom_, Zarbon's power goes right through the roof and his scream gets awful and like pebbles grinding into concrete, and he's suddenly much bigger and much _scarier_.

He knows right where the disk came from and he leaps so fast I can barely keep track of him. He leaps over to Kuririn, and grabs his head, and shakes him around, screaming and screaming and Raditz is swearing under his breath and swearing and swearing at Zarbon or himself or somebody and Zarbon shouts and _yells_ and it's all so _loud_, but I look at Raditz and it's like all he can see is where Zarbon's hair got sliced off and where Zarbon's hand is and where my Dad is, fighting back somebody big and pink to try to get to Kuririn. All I can hear all the screaming but with his eyes so glazed-over and glassy it's like all Raditz can hear is the swishing and the squeezing and whispers instead of yelling—like his eyes are windows you can't shout through, only see through, like even if I was shouting he wouldn't notice. Like how everything slows down when stuff goes bad.

By now Zarbon's fingernails are digging against Kuririn's head and it's really really painful to look at, but I can't get Raditz's face out of my head and I think things are going to get worse. Dad finally gets the pink guy trapped and Piccolo shoots a beam at him that does him away, and I watch as they both turn around to look at Kuririn, and I see their faces change only just before I hear a noise.

An awful, awful noise. A noise that I think is never gonna leave my head.

_Crunch_.

Like breaking an arm but worse. Like squashing a bug, but louder.

And then a lot of cackling. Freeza just laughing and laughing. Like he saw something funny.

Like it doesn't bother him the littlest bit that my Dad's best friend's head got squished by Zarbon.

Then there's a blur, and everything is going so much faster. Dad is by Zarbon. Dad is shouting, "Kaio-ken!" With numbers, more numbers. Two, three, five. Ten. Piccolo stares like he sees death and charges another beam. I feel my head deciding whether to spring in, and every single one of my muscles getting ready, one by one, snapping into place and stretching and pulling, my toes curling through my boots and my shoulders swinging Raditz's hand off.

Then Zarbon is dead and somehow I missed how, like Dad and Piccolo were too quick for me to see in that moment I spent feeling my muscles.

"What a shame!" Freeza yells. He's still laughing but he sounds nervous. There are still some guys around him, but they're weak. Easy to kill. Easy to… "I so enjoyed Zarbon's company. What a monster you are to take him from me. _Tsk, tsk._" More laughing, like saying that makes Freeza feel better. "I'll need new pets, you know. Somebody new to stand by me and say the awful, nasty things I don't want to." He must be joking. He's the one saying the awful, nasty things.

"In fact," Freeza continues, "you two would do just fine." He's saying it to Dad and Piccolo. No. _No_.

Dad's about to say something but Freeza cuts in again. "Then again," the air is thick, "I think the both of you might just try to band together and fight me, and that would be _such _an inconvenience. Hm," he ponders something and my muscles get tighter. My blood gets hotter. I can see Raditz reaching out for me but it happens so slowly that I can just step out of the way. My step happens slowly too, but I'm still too fast for him. "I'll just have to pick one of you. Ah!" and it seems like he's gonna say something else but he doesn't.

It's totally silent and I wonder if my eyes are glass.

The air blows up. It pulls in for a second and then gets so hot it all shoots out to try to get away from itself. And the noise is loud. It's like lightning and thunder, without the electricity. Wind blows past me, but by then I'm blowing past it just as fast.

Because where the air pulled in is where Piccolo was and he's gone.

A million little pieces.

Freeza is laughing but I can't hear it past the blood pumping through my ears, hotter and hotter and hotter, and this is just like when my tail started aching but I _have _no tail so the lava in my insides flows freer and faster and everything and everybody gets slower. Everything is wavy around me, heat jumping out of me into the air, more and more and more, like the Kaio-ken but different because my skin isn't burning like Yamcha's did and it comes from someplace _different_, from my gut and not from my chest like Dad described it but I don't know if it's enough because Freeza catches my eye in regular-time, not slow-time like everything else.

He stops laughing and I think he might move out of the way faster than I can get there, and there's nothing, _nothing _more important than this so I close my eyes tight (red, all red, all fiery yellow-orange-red underneath, burning me, burning every little bit) and I shout, "_Kaio-ken!_" and there's the other heat, the different heat, and now the burning in the deeper parts of me is on the surface too, and everything is on fire.

I shout Piccolo's name and it's like it gives me more power too—all of me tingling, everything lighter, everything faster, like every bit of me disappeared besides my pulse and the fire that I started feeling the second I noticed he was dead.

Freeza mouths something and stands, and gets ready to fight back, and I'm not ready for the world to be slow around not just me but also him. He's right there, then he's right behind me, grabbing me through the burning air and turning my head just a bit to the side—there's Raditz, gaping, then, slowly, leaping up, away, the way Yamcha went, and his words reach me too slow for me to understand them and even if I did I couldn't answer because Freeza's hands get tight and I feel my neck jerking fast, around, too far, all the way around, and I—

END Part I


	32. II, 1: Raditz

NOTE: I knooooow it's short, and I'm very sorry, but how could I deprive you of this chapter's (sort of, kind of, maybe not really) suspenseful ending? Anyway, you're probably used to short chapters from me by now, given my track record lately. XD

Also, welcome to Part II! I'm scared. And excited. You'll see.

…

**Part II**

...

Gone.

_Gone_.

He's fucking _gone._ That…stupid kid. Gohan.

Not like I know it in that _really for certain _way 'cause I didn't stay around to watch (not to say I couldn't've, 'cause I've stomached worse), but 'cause of he way his _ki_ just…disappeared. And the crunching sound. Kakarrot's scream.

It ain't my fault, of course, ain't…

But anyway, I'm quick on my way to Bulma's trying not to think of the crunching sound and the _kid_.

I land just in time to knock on the window of her ship as she's starting it up. Gods above, from the look on her face it's like I'm a ghost. Do I look so awful? I can't. I ain't even bleeding. Door lowers down and I scramble in and a bunch of gibberish falls out of my mouth, but she seems to understand 'cause before I can figure out what it is I just told her, she's sitting up front pressing buttons. It's clear I'm more used to it than anybody else here, rushing up and through an atmosphere and into space. And, well, hell, I'm more used to space than them. Guess it occurs to me that Bulma ain't never been this far out past her home. Pity her, sort of, but no time to think of that. From here I can see tiny flashes below, Kakarrot fighting that goddamned sonnuvabitch Freeza (and losing, I just know it).

_Shit_. I can't believe…I mean, I can't believe I was stupid enough to think that we stood a chance for a second, when guy after guy of Freeza's got toppled. Cui. Dodoria. Zarbon. Zarbon—but that don't matter. It ain't as if it made a difference, after all, since Freeza hisself is worth a hundred of any of 'em, from the stories I've heard. Stupid, stupid, _stupid_. We shoulda ran from the start. I coulda knocked the kid out and brought him back and left the fight to Kakarrot, who was a moron enough to want it anyway. An' that ain't even all of it. He was in charge of a team. A _team _a' people who thought he was the greatest thing alive an' he _knew _they couldn't take it an' still he was excited about the fight. Didn't do nothin' to send them to safety. Not that I'm sentimental, or nothin', only when I fought in teams we weren't that stupid. It ain't practical to just let everybody get slaughtered 'cause then you gotta find new ones, train new ones…maybe he was just banking on those dragonballs that he could get his friends back. 'Course in that regard he was also banking he'd _live_, which was probably his stupidest mistake.

And I'd be the last guy to say a damn thing about giving a fuck what happens to your offspring (given how many I might just have floatin' around the universe, that I don't got the slightest desire to run into), but Gohan's different. Smarter than his damned father, that's for sure. Smarter'n me, probably. He's somethin' else. _Was _somethin' else. Ain't never met somebody so small who was so strong and am damned _proud _to know it's the Saiyan blood in 'im. An' we're…sort of family. He looks…_looked_, just like…well. Don't matter for now.

Finally when Bulma's done oohing and ahhing over space and how her ship works and all that (which I'm glad for, make no mistake, 'cause I do like the fact that I ain't dead yet), I decide can talk sensible words. "We need to get far away, fast."

"Uh-huh," she seems distracted all of a sudden, plugging in more numbers. Some beeping comes off the panel. Hope this thing isn't breaking, or something.

"Way I see it is, you're gonna want your planet back after Freeza has his way with it. Ain't no way we can beat him now," I tell her, an' realize how much she _don't_ know about the battle, that I gotta tell her later, maybe, when my voice won't go all funny over it, "we gotta figure that out sometime in the meantime while we run away from him, 'cause I feel like he's gonna chase us down. Bastard was _pissed_. Not like the normal way," she's still distracted but I think she's listening, "I mean, all…well, don't do to explain it, but you get it. Anyway, we…"

"Raditz," she cuts in, "this has to wait. Sorry, but there are more pressing issues."

Uh-huh. More pressing issues than Freeza after our heads? Right. Well, my head at least, but everybody else's I'm with, I'm sure, 'cause I get the feeling like he'll exact his revenge in whatever fucked-up way he wants and then just blow the ship up or something.

"Was it really bad?" says the Lunch chick that's been following Bulma around (equally freaky blue hair—sometimes). I guess she's talking to me. "The…the fight?"

"Yeah," is all I can say.

"I saw Yamcha," she says, glancing all worried-like over toward this healing tank that's been set up in the ship. "And…" she looks about to start crying, "and I guess that since we left that must mean no one else made it!" Now she's hiccupping back tears.

"Well," I say, "at least, nobody will for much longer." Bulma's half-listening; I can see. But this ain't no way to tell her what happened. Lucky for me, Lunch stops asking questions. She bites on her nails and sits down nearby and goes back to looking out at the stars, at her Earth. Don't know the girl well, but damn, she seems dumb as rocks compared to Bulma. At least, when she's the blue-haired one. The other one, now she…ain't bad.

Bulma collapses back into her chair and raps her fingers against the panel in the most annoying way, over and over and over, like she does. She blows her hair out of her eyes and wipes sweat off of her face. This seems like a good time to take the stress down a notch…for all of us. "What's got you all hot and bothered?" I ask, with an appropriately sized grin, but then _bam_, those…that look that she can do with those _eyes_ and all of a sudden for some reason I feel kinda awful for saying it. You know, when I was a kid, nobody ever warned me about this secret power that some people (mostly chicks, mostly the hot ones that I'm having sex with) have. Considering all the other things we got warned about, you'd think they'da taken a second for that. Seems…important. For…battle strategies. And…shit like that.

"Now is _not _the time," she says, and is back to typing and looking like she might throw that coffee she's got sitting there (always the coffee) onto the screen. Then she pauses. "So, Raditz?"

"Yeah?" I say.

"You say we're basically fucked as far as this Freeza guy goes?" Like she don't know better. What's she getting at?

"Basically. 'Til we figure out something. Or I guess we could just keep running, if we get a good enough lead on 'im," I say.

"But if you could get help…" she says, now biting on her nails just like Lunch, now looking out the window just like Lunch, but somehow way _smarter_.

"What are you talking about?" Nothing about her tone of voice that I liked.

"I mean, say that somebody was going to, I don't know, find out pretty soon that Freeza is down there on Earth, and then find out that we're not, and will be pissed at us for it, whereas if they found out first that we're here, and then that Freeza is on Earth, they might be, ah, willing to help?" Damned women. Them and their complicated questions. Wait…

"Who?" I ask.

"Well, I mean, it could cause more problems, I mean, if we don't tell them…if things are as bad as I get the feeling they are, we don't need _more _enemies…" There is something she's not telling me. You know, like, who she's talking about. "And, I mean, maybe you could talk some sense into them. There's room on the ship…"

"What the _hell _are you…"

Then, of course, come the voices. Not the voices in my head—thank every god that ever existed, because they've been humming at me all angry-like ever since Freeza showed up—but the other voices.

"And just where are you headed?" one comes through some speakers on Bulma's panels. Bulma looks at me with big, panicked eyes.

"To a magical land of pastries and no asshole princes," is all I can think to say. Bulma looks like she's about to slap me.

"Pastries?" says the other voice (of course), "Sounds like Raditz is a _desserter_, Vegeta!" Dammit.

Bulma marches up to the console and gives me a very pissed _don't interrupt me or so help me I will make out-of-hand and completely unrealistic comments about your perfectly amazing sexual performance_ look before taking in a deep breath and saying something that I get the feeling I am not gonna like.

Surprise, surprise.


	33. II, 2: Vegeta

NOTE: I mentioned the part where there are some new narrators, right?

And since it wasn't signed and I want to be sure to respond: Re: review posted by Iron Lad: Welcome back! D'aww, thank you! And I don't know what'll be happening in the next few chapters, I admit - but if you'll take my word for it, may I say that I don't think you have to worry? I very much suspect Raditz is not going to let anybody take attention away from him, Vegeta included. XD

...

"Freeza's already on Earth," she says, "according to Raditz he'll be destroying it soon," she says, and, "unless you want to be a part of that maybe you should come with us," she says. Presumptuous bitch. Yelling in the background—probably Raditz.

It occurs to me that it would have been better to have stayed on the planet Namek long enough to use their dragonballs again. But we _could _have reached Earth before Freeza, had he not been spending time suspiciously close to the edges of this corner of the galaxy.

In fact, it might be just as easy to return to Namek before Raditz and his cute little backwater crew get there. From the impression I've gotten, I seriously doubt Earth has the kind of technology to build a craft faster than the pods. We could easily arrive there before them—though from what little those green bastards would tell us I've gathered it'd still be a while before we could make any wishes. Raditz made sure of that…traitorous moron.

Of course, by the time I can wish for my immortality, the Earthlings may have arrived. Ordinarily this would be of little importance, except that if Raditz got use of the balls first—has he already become immortal? I suppose it's not impossible that he's biding his time until he can defeat Freeza, if this is the case. If that son of a bitch _did _get to make his wish…

"Should we do it?" I hear Nappa ask. "I don't really wanna die. You know, Freeza will probably come after us for trying to use the Namek dragonballs before him."

_Shit_. Did Freeza get his wish on Earth before wiping most of these fools out? There is too much I don't know. "I feel so warm and fuzzy knowing us three Saiyans will be back together at last," I drawl. Nappa, of course, doesn't seem to get it. I also hear some loud swearing, followed by the closer sound of Raditz shouting incoherently into my ear (through the scouter, of course). The _nerve_. Well, he and his woman-of-the-sticks can put up with having me aboard, then. I've got some questioning to do.

...

Her ship seems specifically designed to take in and store our pods—as if she _expected _this. Or perhaps she has one stowed away for emergency escape. Nappa, being _Nappa_, is excited. Think being cooped up in that pod drives the man insane, because for some reason he constantly feels the need to _talk _and be _social_. Well, he can funnel all of his drivel to the Earthlings. If nothing else, that seems good reason to put up with these people. Anyway, I'll probably just kill them in the end. Unless Raditz is immortal. Damn.

Of course, as the door opens we are greeted by the continued shouting of Raditz, who does not seem to have learned how to shut up since last I saw him. Takes _balls _considering that immortal or not, I can always give him a rather painful beating, and he _knows _it. "Shut up, Raditz," I tell him.

"…And don't you even fucking _try _to lay a finger on Bulma," he finishes his rampage on a rather disgustingly sweet note.

"Trust me," I say, "it won't be a problem. Though I don't see how _you _intend to stop me." Casually and to prove my point, I flick on my scouter. And he _grins_. I try to read his power, but the damned thing doesn't work_._ "I know you're weak, Raditz, but my scouter's reading a power level of _one_. Did Earth make you _weaker_?" As if that were possible. What a sorry excuse for a Saiyan.

"Look again," he says. Still one. "Closer," he says. Still one—I don't understand what that bastard is—

I choke back a shout when the blasted thing bursts in my face.

"Oops," says Raditz. "Sorry about that. Try using Nappa's. I'll go easier on it. I think I just powered up too fast."

The woman I take to be his Bulma looks too damn proud of this, and another female is giggling and clapping (do all Earth females have blue hair? Odd).

"Powered up?" I say. "Bullshit." He just shrugs toward Nappa, who hands me his scouter, which I put on again.

"All right, now I'll try to be real careful not to hurt you too bad," he says. _Must _have gotten immortality. He hasn't been such an ass to me since I was young, because he knows better. Hm…I wonder how it would feel to be eternally alive and suffocating in space. He motions toward the scouter, and (too obligingly, perhaps) I turn it on. I smirk. What a fool.

One, two, three. Ten, twenty, thirty. One hundred, two hundred, three hundred. One thousand, two thousand three thousand. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, _SNAP. _With a sneer he seems to continue, as if I could still read it. "Catch that?" he says. "I got sort of an idea of how I might keep you in line and it sounds just about like that breaking scouter."

I've known my whole life what it means to be weaker than someone. I'm used to it, and I work against it. But to have a third-class dolt like Raditz rubbing his power in my face…disgusting. "Did you get this power from the dragonballs?"

"No," he says, crossing his arms.

"_How_…" I start to ask, but forget it. I don't care. "What about immortality? Did you get that?"

"Immortality?" he _scoffs_. "No. I got my tail back."

"It _grows_ back, moron," I tell him.

"Oh," now this Bulma woman grins, "there are ways to stop that." What kind of a _psychotic_ bitch…

"Hurts like hell," Raditz adds. They look at each other like it's a secret joke between them.

"Sounds scary," Nappa chimes in. The other woman with blue hair nods and mutters something that sounds like agreement.

So Raditz isn't immortal, but he's…somehow…more powerful than I am. At the very least, we're an even match—I don't know if he powered up any farther than when my scouter broke or if he just pretended like it for show. That would be just like Raditz, but given the recent developments…best not underestimate him. I wonder, are these women here with him also warriors? Then again, maybe not. Raditz always had awful taste.

"And Freeza?" I ask. "Did he get a wish?"

"No," Raditz says, "he killed the Namekian that kept the dragonballs working. Not that he knew it." And then he looks down, somber, like he's thinking about this. Must've gotten all buddy-buddy with this Namekian, by the looks of it. Tch. "Now if you'll excuse us," he continues after a while, "we need to get our asses away from Freeza. You had better be _damn _glad that Bulma invited you on. I wouldn't have."

"You're clearly stronger than her," I say. "You had the final say in the matter, did you not?"

He gives me a look like I just said something _stupid_ and turns away. "I got some stuff I have to tell you once you get everything set up," he tells the woman. "You mind if I try to catch some shuteye in the meantime?" She shrugs and seems busy at the ship's controls, and off he wanders.

"We've got an extra room that you and your friend can share," she tells me, and points over her shoulder at the door.

"Awfully fancy for an escape ship," I tell her, because it was the first thought I had. Honestly, she could have made it faster if it were smaller.

She shrugs, flips her hair over her shoulder. "I won't travel in discomfort."

"And I suppose you have a room full of food? That will last all of a week. You have three Saiyans aboard, woman. Surely you're aware of our eating habits."

"I was _hoping _to have Son Goku—oh, sorry, _Kakarrot_—and his son with us," she snorts. "And then some. I'm not stupid. I have plenty of food. But I'm not telling _you _where it is."

"Are you stronger than Raditz?" I blurt. She's acting every bit as cocky as him and I'd better know. She just laughs and points at her head. "I'll take that as a no."

"I don't need to be strong," she says. "Or didn't you notice how _I'm _the one saving our asses?"

"I could survive fine with my pod," I tell her. "Unlike you, I know which places have what, and what parts of the galaxy to avoid."

"So you'd just let this Freeza guy run around making wishes on the Namekian dragonballs?" More keystrokes.

"And you intend to stop him?" Ridiculous.

"I intend to try. As I understand it," she pauses, looks at her hands, looks back at the screen, "Son is dead. Gohan is dead. Piccolo. It's up to me and Raditz—and Yamcha—to solve this." She glances at the other woman. "You too, Lunch."

"Oh, Bulma," she giggles nervously, "you know I'm not as smart as you! I don't know how I can possibly help!" At least the weak little thing knows her place.

"Just because you haven't read as many textbooks as I have," she says, giving the Lunch woman a too-nice glance, "doesn't mean you won't be able to help."

"Just look at Nappa," I say, glancing at him. "Stupid as a rock but I keep him around for _some _reason." Nappa grins like it's a compliment and the Lunch woman giggles. Whether it's because she also thinks it's a compliment, or because she has a shred of sense in her and is laughing at him, I can't tell.

The other woman, Bulma, rolls her eyes at me and goes back to typing. Ordinarily I would use this as a good excuse to, say, kill her (tough to deny that her frightened screams would almost certainly be as music), but, _hell_, I don't…don't want to find out just how Raditz's strength compares to mine. It's too close—not like the wide gap between Nappa and myself. At least Nappa hasn't taken to following _him _around. No, my best bet will be to wait and plan. I'm sure there is some other way for me to do him in, and I just have to manage it before we actually _reach _Namek. From there…there's got to be some way to wait to make the wish. Or some way to speed it along. Or perhaps, if I can hide one dragonball for long enough that Raditz or I manage to do Freeza away, then I only need to deal with Raditz…

Either way, I can be certain that this will take time and thought. But patience I have (kneeling to that son-of-a-bitch Freeza for over two decades of my life—I can handle a year more if I must); and thinking, I (unlike Raditz) can do.


	34. II, 3: Bulma

NOTE: I know that this is super short, which is the _opposite _of what you should expect when I go so unforgivably long without updating (a month! exactly a month! a whole month! *dies*), soooo, I'm really sorry. Better late than never?

Despite it being the beginning of a new semester, I'd like to try to build up some momentum and get back into the groove. My continued thanks to everyone for reading, reviewing, and all that…it means a lot to me. Please let me know what you think…if you still like this story, if I've gotten rusty and totally ruined it…et cetera. XD

Thank you all again for your patience. Eep. (Also, I hope I haven't rehashed something I already did in this chapter. I didn't reread the old stuff, just jumped into it.)

…

So when Raditz had first told me that there were other Saiyans I was kind of expecting creeps. After all, Raditz isn't exactly the most normal person (I suppose not being a "person" at all, in the usual sense, is a part of it) and my impressions of him then were a little more…_negative_…than now.

So yeah. From that and their voices I had thoughts about what they'd be like. And maybe part of me was holding out for the thought that they'd end up being perfectly all right people.

But no. This Vegeta guy is, no joke, capital-C Creepy. I'm just glad that Raditz is here. Seeing Raditz rub his power in this guy's face? More than a little satisfying. I'm sure between us we can handle this guy but that doesn't change the fact that he gives off weird vibes. Nappa doesn't seem as bad—reminds me of those macho guys who think they're tough shit, but maybe a little less of a jerk (presumably because he has someone like Vegeta as a boss).

Still kind of wish I'd brought some of that chemical that I'd used to get rid of Raditz's tail. Just in case. But—too late for that.

Too late for the Earth, from the sound of it.

Raditz waltzes into the room, probably still on a little bit of a high from showing Mister Creepy what-for. "You look awful thoughtful," he says to me, plopping down onto the bed with his hands thrown behind his head, all casual.

"I was thinking about the fact that my _home _is about to be blown to kingdom come," I inform him, and yeah, a little bitterly at that.

His face falls a little. "Oh. Yeah. Well, at least we escaped. Guess it wouldn't be the first time I lucked out and didn't get blown up with m—with the planet I shoulda been on." He flips over, and his expression returns to a grin. Back to thinking about how he's the strongest guy on the ship, I'd guess. _Men_. Or maybe…_Saiyans._

"Tell me about this Vegeta guy," I say, to get my mind off of things like all of my inventions and equipment and buildings and rooms and friends being torn into tiny fiery bits. Not that this is much more pleasant.

Raditz stares at me for a few moments, like he's measuring why I'm asking. "Well, you've met 'im, and I've already told you about 'im. What else is there?"

"I don't know," I shiver, "why is he so…"

"Oh, I bet it's on purpose," he answers, like he knows exactly what I mean. "Plus the whole fact that he's a sexless blue-blooded sonnuvabitch really helps things along, I'd say."

All right. I guess that solves that.

"Why?" he goes on, "You think he's handsomer than me?" Preens his absolutely stupidly _ridiculous _hair as he says it, grinning. I can't think of anything clever to say to that, so I just punch him harmlessly (well, obviously) in the arm. His eyes narrow and he seems pleased. Yeah, he _would _like it when I punch him. "So what's the plan?" he eventually says, which is surprising because I was expecting the next words out of his mouth to be a come-on.

"Well," I've been thinking about this a little, "as I see it we need to use Namek's dragonballs to get Earth back. Yes? You said that they have multiple wishes, so we can theoretically take care of everything we need to then."

He nods. "Yeah, but I think you said somethin' about dragonballs taking a while to recharge?"

"That's the problem," I muse. "We have to wait around for them to recharge, and assume that in the meantime Vegeta won't try to pull something. Did you see the way he was looking around? _So _don't trust him."

"Maybe you should build him a glass cage," Raditz suggests, feigning innocence. "And cut his tail off."

Which, of _course_, only makes me think more about my lab getting blown up.

"Freeza, too," he continues as if he hadn't said a thing. "There's him; he might do something. I mean, he'll want th' dragonballs as well once he figures out he can't do anything on Earth and all."

"I hope Son was smart enough to avoid telling Freeza that little detail," I think aloud, "at least it would keep the Earth intact for a lot longer…but…" and now a sigh escapes me, "knowing Son, it'll have been the first thing out of his mouth."

"'Ha!'" Raditz pitches his voice higher, in what I assume is meant to be an imitation of Son, "'Now that you have killed the green guy, you can never ever get your wish! Hahah! You foolish lizard who is fifty bajillion times stronger than me! Now you will taste justice!' _Squish!_ Something like that?"

Aw, screw it. It's not funny (I tell myself) but I can't hold back a snicker. "Something like that." Ah. Gallows humor. Then straight back to problem-solving. (It's sort of my thing.) "So unless Son developed some wit when we weren't paying attention, Freeza knows that there's no reason for him to stick around Earth. He'll be heading straight for Namek. I think that if we keep up the pace, we can beat him there—he may have a really fancy ship" (I don't know this, of course, but Raditz doesn't correct me so I'm supposing it was a good guess) "but ours is quite a lot smaller." And designed by _me_, of course.

"I hope you're right," he says. "So then what?" Of course, he's not the planning sort. I imagine it hurts his cute little head to think too much. He seems to sense my line of thought and frowns at me.

"So we…well, I don't know. We have to…somehow…" gears turning, gears turning, gears turning, gears _clicking_! "Well, we'll have to take the dragonballs and the person who powers them with us! And keep running until we can make our wish. I guess." Okay, so it's not the _best _plan, and doesn't take into account things like having to stop for fuel and food, but Freeza has to do that, too, right? I hope?

He rolls his eyes at me. "Okay, genius. I hope you come up with a better plan along the way. Or maybe some extra details. 'Cause all I'm hearing right now is _run real fast_."

"Well…basically…yeah." Great. Getting called an idiot by Raditz. Maybe he's right, but, well, what other options do we have? I just hope something doesn't throw a wrench into the process. No curveballs, as Yamcha (still healing, looking better, thank goodness, because while Raditz is so sure he's stronger than Vegeta, could he handle it if the big guy, Nappa, joined in?) would probably say.

Of course that's usually what happens in all the books and movies the second someone says "if all goes according to plan." And it's becoming increasingly difficult to convince myself I'm not a part of at least one of these.

"You're crazy," Raditz tells me.

"Yeah, well," I say. "At least my superiors don't include a creepy possibly-rapist guy and a lizard who's going to blow up the Earth."

"Hey, that ain't my fault!" he protests, shoving a pillow at me. That he doesn't accidentally smother me in the process for some reason makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

I'm about to say something witty in return when a bout of screaming issues from the common room.

Oh, great.

Lunch sneezed.


	35. II, 4: Lunch

Note: New narrator! I'd say it's a two-for-one deal.

…

If none a' these fucking sniveling _bastards _will tell me what's going on I'm gonna _strangle _it outta one of their fucking throats!

One, a short freak, looks at me like he ain't as scared as he oughtta be that I'm pissed but at least he does look damn confused and at least he seems half as put off as he oughtta be. Some other guy beside him, some fucker who makes me 'bout puke on the floor with how he wears his bald head, like it looks good on somebody like _him _is freaking out an' tryin' to hide behind the short freak.

That pisser Yamcha looks to be in some kind of contraption and don't look in the condition to tell me what the _fuck _happened. And nobody else is around but there's gotta be _somebody _else here. That bitch Bulma must be around, owing to this being _her _ship. I recognize it from a few times before, when I woke up here in the middle of working on it or some shit, not that I paid it much mind since I always got about to the most important thing, which was getting to T—to the others, 'cause I'll be _damned _if I get all stuck in a stuffy lab.

I know there was something stupid going down with some_ aliens _and I wonder if these two are some of them. And nobody ever told _me _much but I'm gathering that something went wrong because this was the escape plan.

Now, who the hell else is around here? I scream it: "Any of you fuckers gonna tell me what's going on in here, or do I have to shoot a hole into the side of the ship?"

And the big bald one is lunging forward and snatching the gun out of my hands and throwing across the room and blubbering something about not wanting t' die so's since he's this close to me I grab him by his big ears and knee him in the throat. "You gonna tell me what's going on here?" I shout in his face. He don't seem too fucked up by what I did to him but after all that time with those fighting maniacs I ain't exactly surprised, and anyway, at least he looks just a little shocked.

Then right about on cue comes Bulma with that scruffy-haired—whatsit—Saiyan—behind her. Scruffier than Son Goku, I mean, with his godawful _hair_—Raditz, that's his name. Dunno why I keep hoping and thinking that maybe somebody else'll be behind him, 'cause _shit_, if this was the _escape plan _and _he _ain't here then—

"Lunch!" Bulma shouts, and she looks for half a second like she ain't sure whether to be relieved that I don't got my gun anymore or if she's maybe just twice as pissed that one of them other Saiyans has it. Then I guess she figures better him than me and comes striding up to me in that way she does, like she's some shit—but I guess here he is, ain't she? Being the only one knowing how to drive us, 'cause this is _nothing _like the normal getaway car. "Calm down," she says, and I'm about _this _close to spitting in her face, because, _shit_, I _am _calm, _dammit_. "We had to run. Freeza had…Raditz says everybody was dying, and we had to get away before—"

"I get it!" I tell her. "I fucking get it!" Because I'll be a man's hairy balls if I wanna think about that right now, about _everybody was dying_, because that would "I mean—well, just the thing I ain't exactly in the mood t' think about!

She frowns at me, a big-girl frown like she thinks she ain't every bit as much of a snobby brat as she was when I first met her. "We're still in danger," she says, "and lots of it. So let's not have any more crazy outbursts, huh? Just—don't go nuts."

Yeah, she's so bold when I don't got my gun. Then again she was always pretty ballsy. Maybe why now it's just her in here, her and a room full of men who could eat her for breakfast, and me.

"I'm not fucking _stupid_," I tell her, and I turn away to walk back over to the bald guy to fetch my gun back. He seems kind of dazed still, and don't even put up a fight. I sling it over my shoulder. Makes me feel safer. I don't give two shits if it don't actually do nothin' against these guys or whatever it is we're running from. I got it on me and that's what matters. And I ain't _actually _gonna go blowin' holes in the ship. What is it about how I say stuff makes people think I mean it?

"Right, well—" she stops like she don't know what to say, probably 'cause she don't got nothin' to say and just likes the sound of her own voice. I know that she was workin' on something or another with my—well—other half—or whatever the fucking thing is that happens when I sneeze—on something, and I sure as hell was never given a clue what it was, which I don't like one bit and which I s'spect was done on purpose being as, well, shit, Bulma's the type that likes t' hear her own voice. Y'know, because when I came to—after the _other _me sneezed—I got there was this feeling hangin' in the air like you just walked in on a private conversation.

"Glad you all get along so well," the short Saiyan says, big-ass smirk on his face. I can tell he's th' sort always thinking how's the best way to get the goods and get away an' he's thinking about it right now. Why the fuck is he here, anyway? "Raditz, I'm so glad you traded your Saiyan heritage for these fine folk."

"I didn't _trade _nothin'!" Raditz yells back at him. "I'm more of a Saiyan than you ever were Vegeta, an' don't make me show you again just why!"

Huh. Sounds like I missed something damn entertaining, by the looks on everybody's faces: Bulma, for instance, looks two parts horrified and one part proud…prouder than she usually seems t' be, anyhow. The bald one looks like he might piss hisself. "Vegeta," he says, "not here." He don't look like the voice of reason type—but with this group? Maybe.

But Vegeta don't look about to back down, and so's I've half a mind to just kick back an' see how this plays out, but first I—ah—ah—

…

Yikes, things sure aren't looking good here. Oh, but maybe it's okay—now they're all looking at me. This man with spiky hair—shorter than Bulma's boyfriend's—he seems the most confused of anyone, so I guess maybe he didn't see me change the first time. "I hope I didn't cause any trouble," I tell them.

"Not at all," Bulma says, but she's sighing like I really did and…

"Nappa," says the spiky-haired man, "do not forget who is in charge here."

"Yeah, _me_," says Bulma. Which I'm pretty sure is true, because, I mean, she knows how to fly the ship, right? She tried to tell me a little about it, in case something happened to her, so I guess I know a little—but she's the one really in charge. It was…actually really nice of her to show me how to do things—_important _things. Nobody ever trusted me to do anything other than cook, or…or tidy things up, or anything. I used to think it was because of what happens when I sneeze, but…Bulma and I talked about it a little and…I found out that I don't _really _think that. I think that really nobody thinks I can do things…remember things, learn things. (Okay, and maybe a little bit of it is what happens when I sneeze.)

But every single time I wake up from the other side of me sneezing, I _have _to do things: figure out where I am, figure out if anybody's mad at me, figure out how to make them _stop _being mad at me if they are. Sometimes, I wake up with bags of money over my back and some men in an airplane chasing me down. Nobody likes to believe "I have another person inside me that comes out when I sneeze," but that's what I have to convince them of, before I sneeze again. Sometimes I know that won't work and I tell that somebody ran past and threw the bags at me. Usually they believe me, though I'm not sure why—it's not really that good of an explanation.

Then there were fewer men chasing me, but I kept ending up far away, in the middle of nowhere. I think the other me was trying to find Tenshinhan. Maybe those two are better friends…better friends than he and I are. Mostly I don't have any friends, besides Bulma, and maybe Kuririn and maybe a couple of the others, maybe, though they always looks at me kind of funny.

_Looked _at me, I mean, because everybody is _gone_. Just the thought makes me feel so sad that my legs stop wanting to hold me, and then they _do _stop holding me, and I topple onto the floor and everything almost goes black before I wake up a half second later.

"You all right?" says the bald man who was standing not too far away—Nappa. Oh, Bulma said the other Saiyans would be so _mean _but so far this one doesn't seem nearly as mean as the other.

"Yes," I say, and my knees are still wobbly when I try to stand up, even though I really am almost used to thinking of the fact that if it weren't for Bulma I'd be gone too, and probably the Earth would never come back again—but luckily she has a plan and I really hope that we can make it, and get the Earth back. Oh, I bet there are no peaches on other planets, and I bet the clouds aren't nearly as pretty. "Thank you," I add on, so that he knows that I'm glad that he asked. He shrugs.

I guess in the time that I was thinking about being chased, and about being dead, something happened, because now Raditz is standing between Bulma and Vegeta, who seem like they're yelling at each other, and Raditz jumps in with something sometimes too. "Oh, this isn't good," I say. Nappa nods. "We're all on the same ship. It won't do to get mad at each other." And I sigh, because I can't say anything mean about the other Saiyan, Vegeta, because I don't really know him and maybe he's not usually like this, but I _can _say something about Bulma: "She's really smart but sometimes she doesn't remember that she can't win every single argument." I've seen her argue with enough people enough times that I think I'm allowed to say something like that. Right?

"No kidding," says Nappa, and I'm about to tell him as politely as I can that _he _can't say anything like that about Bulma because he doesn't _know _her, but then I realize he's looking at Vegeta.

"I have more important things to do than this," Bulma finally says (thank _goodness_, because it looks like Vegeta is about to explode, and—and—I think that these guys have all these powers too, and they could maybe actually _do _that), and she grabs Raditz by the elbow and marches out with him back into the little hallway that leads to our rooms.

I think I might go back to my room too. I don't know if I feel very good about being out here with these two, especially with Vegeta being all angry. Who knows how he gets? Everyone says that my other side has a really bad temper, but this guy might even be worse. "Good night," I tell them, even though it's not night, because it doesn't hurt to be polite and I really _am _going to go to sleep, because it's been a very very long day.


End file.
